Improved enquiry service for passengers follows Rail Regulator's enforcement action

1 October 1999
ORR/99/41

Enforcement action taken by the Rail Regulator in December1998 has delivered an improved service for passengers using the National Rail EnquiryScheme (NRES). Figures released today show that in the four-week period from 22 August to 18 September 1999 NRES has answered just over 93% of calls made to the service, compared to only 84.18% in the same period last year.

Commenting on the latest NRES performance figures, Tom Winsor, the Rail Regulator said: "This demonstrates the effectiveness of an enforcement order in raising and maintaining performance levels. While I am pleased that this month's results are above the licence requirement for NRES to achieve a minimum target figure of 90%, I now expect NRES to perform consistently at this level or better."

Notes for editors:

1. NRES is currently the subject of an enforcement order, imposed by the Rail Regulator on 4 December 1998, for failing to meet their performance target of answering at least 90% of telephone calls made to the service.

2. Under this order, operators face a penalty of £500,000 for any shortfall down to 85% of telephone calls answered, and a second penalty of £500,000 for any further shortfall below that percentage figure. However no penalty is payable if more than 4.6 million calls are answered in a four-week period.

3. This year's actual performance (i.e. including calls abandoned within 30 seconds) are as follows: January 96.05%, February 92.63%, March 91.00%, April 92.88%, May 90.15%, June 90.54%, July 90.63% August 89.86%, September 93.18%. The numberof calls answered in September exceeded the 4.6m cap.