Regulator says performance is improving on the West Coast line, but enforcement action still cannot be ruled out

7 September 2009
ORR/20/09

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) today publishes its Network Rail monitor, outlining the company’s performance during April to July 2009.

The report highlights that since Network Rail and Virgin Trains agreed a revised performance improvement plan, punctuality on the West Coast main line has got better, reaching 86.4% in July.  The average punctuality for the twelve months up to July now stands at 81%. 

But there is no room for complacency warns ORR chief executive Bill Emery as the plan for the remainder of the year needs to be agreed and then delivered. ORR is monitoring performance closely and remains ready to take enforcement action if necessary.

Bill Emery said: “The most recent performance figures are certainly encouraging. The situation did require intervention by the regulator for Network Rail to agree a challenging plan with Virgin Trains to deliver an acceptable level of punctuality agreed by both parties.

“But there is no room for complacency and Network Rail must stay focused.  The West Coast main line is a route which has seen massive investment; poor performance is simply unacceptable, to Virgin Trains and its passengers and to the other train operators using the line.

“We continue to monitor the situation closely, and we are ready to take more formal action if necessary. ORR has yet to agree Network Rail’s plan to improve performance for the remainder of the year. We will be shortly reviewing that with Virgin Trains.”

We have also completed our consultation on the final changes Network Rail needs to make to its delivery plan to establish a clear baseline for its obligations on enhancements in control period 4 (CP4). We recently published our letter setting out the final changes needed which addressed the concerns of operators and funders.

Bill Emery said: “Network Rail must now rise to the challenge, as we are six months into CP4 and we believe certain areas are still inadequate. It is crucial that Network Rail make the changes so that train companies and funders are clear on how it intends to deliver the £8bn programme of enhancements.”

ORR is now publishing for the first time new figures on the proportion of trains cancelled or running significantly late, A target has been set for the industry, and the figures will show the percentage of trains which are either cancelled or delayed longer than 30 minutes on a number of routes.

We have set Network Rail a target to reduce disruption to passengers from planned engineering works by 37% by March 2014. The new target measures disruption caused by engineering possession reflecting the number of passengers affected, and the severity of disruption. The target also requires that disruption to freight operators should get no worse, and the passenger target is not at the expense of freight services.

Commenting on the new figures, Bill Emery said: “In CP4, ORR will for the first time regularly publish figures showing the proportion of trains that are significantly late or cancelled, and how much engineering work affects passengers. We know from the results of the Passenger Focus surveys that these issues are important to rail users.

“By publishing the figures, not only will rail users be able to access the data for themselves, ORR can monitor the performance of Network Rail and the train operating companies, and take action where necessary if they are falling behind on their targets.

“Network Rail will need to improve its partnerships with train operators in order to deliver significant improvements to reliability, capacity and safety. In our recently published strategy, we outlined our vision of a safe, reliable railway meeting the needs of users, providing value for money and achieving satisfaction levels for passengers and freight users equivalent to the best in railways in the world.”

The monitor reports (for Great Britain) covering 1 April – 25 July 2009:

  • Performance and delay minutes: At the end of Q1, PPM MAA reached 90.9%, an increase of 0.5% on the previous year. Our PR08 determination required delay minutes for 2009-10 not to exceed 6.27 million minutes for England and Wales. At the end of Q1 2009-10 Network Rail delivered 10% fewer delay minutes than in Q1 2008-09.
  • Infrastructure assets: Reliability of the track assets continues to improve at the end of Q1 contributing to the improvement in train service performance.
  • Possession disruption index for passengers (PDI-P): This measures the extent of planned disruption to passenger services caused by engineering works on the network.  PDI-P was 0.85 at the end of Q1, below (better than) the end of year target of 1.02.
  • Cancelled or significant late trains (CaSL): The CaSL MAA at the end of Q1 was 4.8% for Long Distance, 2.4% for London and the South East, and 2.5% for regional, all close or ahead of the end of year regulatory targets.

The monitor reports (for Scotland) covering 1 April -25 July 2009:

  • Performance and delay minutes: At the end of Q1, PPM MAA reached 90.4%, which is behind the target of 90.6%. A spate of weather related and other external incidents in July is partly the reason. Our PR08 determination required delay minutes for 2009-10 to FirstScotrail not to exceed 436,000 minutes. At the end of Q1, the figure was 519,492 minutes (for the past twelve months) with preliminary results for August showing an improvement.
  • Infrastructure assets: Reliability of the track assets continues to improve at the end of Q1.
  • Cancelled or significant late trains: The CaSL MAA at the end of Q1 for Scotland was 2.2%.  There is no regulatory target for Scotland CaSL.

Notes to editors

  1. Network Rail monitor is available on our website at: http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/403.pdf
  2. The CP4 enhancement delivery plan letter ORR sent to Network Rail is available on our website at: http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/enh-cp4dp-030909.pdf

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