Performance Monitoring Report on NATIONAL RAIL
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Performance monitoring report on NATIONAL RAIL PASSENGER SERVICES IN THE LONDON AREA Quarter 1 2002-03 (April to June 2002) Prepared by LTUC Research and Policy Team 6 Middle Street London EC1A 7JA October 2002 CONTENTS Section 1 Public performance measure (PPM) Section 2 Lost minutes Section 3 National passenger survey (NPS) (not reported this quarter) Section 4 Passengers in excess of capacity (PIXC) (not reported this quarter) Section 5 Passenger complaints (not reported this quarter) Section 6 Impartial retailing survey (not reported this quarter) Section 7 Glossary and definitions Annex A PPM results for Quarter 1 2001-02 (table) Annex B PPM results for Quarter 1 2001-02 (chart) Annex C 3-year PPM trends – all trains (chart) Annex D 3-year PPM trends – London and south east peak trains (chart) Annex E Lost minutes – Quarter 1 2002-03 (table) Annex F NPS results (not reported this quarter) Annex G Narrative commentaries supplied by the following operators : c2c, Chiltern, Connex South Eastern, First Great Eastern, Gatwick Express, Silverlink, South West Trains, Thameslink, West Anglia Great Northern, Anglia, First Great Western, Great North Eastern, Midland Mainline and Virgin West Coast. OVERVIEW OF QUARTER • Reliability of most London and south east operators has continued to improve but was still below the levels reached prior to the aftermath of the Hatfield derailment. • Wide variations between operators continued, ranging from 9% of trains delayed or cancelled to 24%. • Nearly all operators performed relatively well in weekday peaks, with only a slight decrease on c2c, First Great Eastern and Silverlink. • Longer-distance operators’ performance was 1.5% better than in the previous year and 2% better than in the preceding quarter. • Number of trains planned on both London and east and longer-distance routes was less than a year ago, and in the preceding period. • Delays to London and south east services were roughly equally attributable to train companies and Railtrack. • Railtrack was responsible for most delays to longer distance services, as it was in the same period a year ago. 1. PUBLIC PERFORMANCE MEASURE (PPM) Results for this quarter are tabulated in Annex A. All-trains performance, by train operating company, is shown graphically in Annex B. Each operator's three-year performance, compared with the mean for its group, appears graphically in Annex C. The same information, limited to weekday with-flow peak period trains on the London and south east system (excluding Gatwick Express) appears graphically in Annex D. Some percentages may not sum exactly, because of the effects of rounding. London and south east 1.1 Annexes A and B present to an encouraging picture, with the cancellation and lateness rates for virtually all London and south east operators falling. But in order to eliminate seasonal effects which are cyclical in nature, the comparisons shown in this table and chart are with the equivalent quarter a year earlier. Results for the first quarter of 2001-02 were affected by the widespread introduction of temporary speed restrictions following the Hatfield derailment in Autumn 2000, which had led to the worst period of train performance in half a century (excluding strike effects). The slight improvement in the performance of the train operating companies was a small positive step towards regaining an acceptable level of performance throughout the network. The charts in Annex C show that for this group of operators taken together, there was only a modest recovery, and performance generally remained below the levels achieved in the equivalent quarter two years earlier. Nevertheless, the recovery from the nadir reached post-Hatfield has been sustained. 1.2 The total number of trains scheduled was 0.7% less than a year earlier. At the level of individual train companies, these totals can show surprisingly large short-term variations, as they are affected not only by the planned timetable changes but also by (e.g.) industrial action and engineering ‘possessions’, i.e. periods when the regular timetable is suspended in order to allow work to be carried out on the track and/or signals. An example of longer term change is provided by Gatwick Express, which has reduced the frequency of its night- time schedules because of the lower number of flights now serving the airport. The reduction in the volume of its service is 17.2%, when compared with quarter 1 2001/02. 1.3 Of the trains planned, 1.2% were cancelled – a drop of 0.1% both since the previous quarter and since the same period in 2001-02. Every operator cancelled fewer trains than a year ago, except Silverlink (where the rate was 0.7% up). The fewest cancellations were on First Great Eastern, with a rate of 0.4%. At 2.4%, the cancellation rate was highest on Gatwick Express, as it was case a year ago. But Gatwick Express achieved ‘best in class’ status as the operator whose cancellation rate showed the greatest reduction. It should also be noted that Gatwick Express classes any delay of more than 10 minutes as a cancellation, because of the (relatively) high frequency of its services. 1.4 On this group of services, lateness is defined as trains reaching their advertised termini five or more minutes late. Taken as a group, 15.6% of the trains were late, a fall of 1.4% over the year and of 1.8% over the quarter. Two of the eleven operators showed a year-on-year increase, the highest being that of Connex South Eastern at 1.4%. At the opposite pole, First Great Eastern achieved a 7.9% reduction. 1.5 The net outcome of these changes was that South West Trains continued to have the worst overall punctuality performance, with 23.7% of its trains arriving late. First Great Eastern continued for a second consecutive period to have the best performance, with 8.8% arriving late. It is sometimes suggested that it is difficult for long-distance operators to achieve the same levels of punctuality as those whose trains make shorter journeys – which is why the permitted margin of deviation from advertised time before a train is deemed to be late is greater for the longer distance train companies (10 minutes) than for those running primarily in London and the south east (5 minutes). But this does not adequately account for the variations within each category. It is true that South West Trains has some services running as far afield as Paignton, which is further from London than any point served by Anglia, deemed to be a longer distance operator. But most of South West Trains’ services originate or terminate much closer to London than this, whilst Chiltern (with a much higher punctuality performance) now runs trains as far away as Kenilworth. The Strategic Rail Authority is currently conducting a review of Railtrack’s “rules of the plan”, which underpin the timing allowances on which timetables are based, in order to ensure that appropriate account is taken of such changes in the operating environment as new rolling stock, boarding/alighting times required for increased passenger loadings, and “defensive driving” techniques introduced to mitigate the risk of signals passed at danger. The exercise is intended in due course to deliver more robust timetables which should, inter alia, offer better protection against the repercussive impact of individual minor delays. 1.6 The public performance measure (PPM) combines cancellations and lateness in a single performance yardstick. For the London and south east group as a whole, the PPM in this quarter was 1.5 % better than a year ago (and 2% better than in the immediately preceding quarter). Of this year-on-year improvement, 0.1% was due to reduced cancellations and 1.4% to reduced lateness. 1.7 Compared with 2001-02, the only operators not to show a net improvement were Connex South Eastern (down 1.5%) and South West Trains (down 1.1% - contrary to the claim made by this operator in Annex G), while the greatest increase was that of First Great Eastern (up 8.2%). The best overall PPM for the second period running was that of First Great Eastern (at 90.8%) and the worst was that of again of South West Trains (at 75.2%). 1.8 Heathrow Express is a wholly commercial service, operated by BAA Rail, and is not subject to the SRA’s franchising requirements (including the disclosure of performance information). The company has, however, voluntarily agreed to supply train performance data to LTUC on the same basis as that which is used for calculating the SRA’s PPM. Its results appear in Annex A but are not aggregated with those for other London and south east operators because this is the first period for which comparative results for the previous year are available. In future reports in this series, its results will be aggregated with those of the other TOCs for comparison of performance at network level. 1.9 Taking the quarter under review, the performance of Heathrow Express was bettered only by First Great Eastern with respect to cancellations, and it exceeded that of any other London and south east operator with respect to punctuality. Relative to the same period a year ago, the number of trains cancelled increased by 0.2% but the proportion of trains running late decreased by 2.2%, giving a positive change in PPM of 2.0%. This results in the overall PPM being higher than any other TOC in the London and south east group. 1.10 The graphs in Annex C show the PPM for each London and south east operator (in black) relative to the mean for all operators in the group (in white).