Punctuality falls

Train punctuality drops, with figures for Q1 of 2016-17 the lowest for the first quarter in 11 years.

PUNCTUALITY has dropped on the railway in the past year, with the worst figures in 11 years recorded.

Office of Rail and Road (ORR) figures for quarter 1 (Q1) of 20162017 reveal that the national Public Performance Measure (PPM) was 89.2%, 2.2 percentage points (pp) worse than the corresponding period last year. This was the lowest first quarter since 2005-2006 when a score of 87.5% was recorded. The Moving Annual Average (MAA) was down 1.1pp compared with the same period, finishing Q1 at 88.5%.

The London and South East (LSE) sector recorded a PPM MAA of 87.0%, a 1.8pp fall, with the ORR blaming Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) for 1.2pp of this. This was a lower figure than that of the Long Distance sector. The LSE’s PPM score was 86.8% in Q1, 3.4pp down compared with the same period last year, and was the lowest Q1 score since 2004-2005 (84.6%). The ORR says that in 2016-2017 Q1, GTR operated 28% of services in the LSE sector and that PPM failures by GTR services were responsible for 80% of the decline in the LSE PPM in Q1. That meant GTR services failing PPM were responsible for 2.7pp of the overall 3.4pp fall in the LSE sector’s quarterly PPM for the quarter.

Overall, PPM in the Regional and Scotland sector were down 0.6pp, the worst Q1 score since 2008-2009 when a PPM of 92% was recorded. The Long Distance sector’s PPM was 89.2%, down 0.7pp, and the worst Q1 score recorded since 2008/2009 (88.1%).

The national Cancellations and Significant Lateness (CaSL) figure was 3.8%, up 1.1pp compared with the same period last year. London and the South East recorded a CaSL score of 4.8%, the highest score recorded by this sector and the first time it has recorded a worse score than the Long Distance sector. GTR contributed 79% (1.3pp) of the overall 1.7pp rise. The MAA worsened 0.4pp during the last year end Q1 at 3.3%.

ORR said of the MAA that “while the overall performance is still better than that recorded in the early 2000s, the National PPM MAA has declined steadily since the start of 2013/2014”. The National MAA of 88.5%, it said, was the lowest since Q1 of 2007-2008 (88.3%).

The Long Distance sector ended Q1 with a PPM MAA of 87.4%, the first time it was higher than the LSE sector since 1997-1998 when the series began.

The LSE PPM MAA was down 1.8pp compared with the same period last year. In the 12 months to the end of 2016/2017 Q1, GTR operated 29% of the services in the LSE sector and PPM failures by GTR services were responsible for 69% of the year-on-year decline. GTR services caused 1.2pp of the overall 1.8pp fall.

The ORR says the decline in LSE performance can be put down to a number of causes. It said severe weather caused 7,100 PPM failures, many of which were on June 23, and that this was quadruple the number in the same period last year. Delays caused by engineering works caused 3,200 PPM failures (an increase of 67.7%), and delays due to issues with train crew caused 27,900 PPM failures - more than double the same period last year.

Comparisons with the railways in Europe are now available for the 2014 calendar year. For trains in the Regional and Scotland sector and LSE combined, 89.8% of services arrived within five minutes of scheduled arrival time at their final destination, making Britain 18th best of 23 countries. For LSE services arriving within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival at their destination, Britain ranked ninth of 22 countries.

For rail freight, the Freight Delivery Metric (FDM) was 0.6pp higher in 2016/2017 Q1 than the same period last year. The FDM MAA was 94.2%, 0.2pp higher than in 2015/2016 Q1.