Punctuality woe for under-fire rail firm

Mar 28 2008 Western Mail

FIRST Great Western (FGW) has the least punctual train service in Britain with more than a fifth of its trains running late, according to figures released last night.

The company, which runs services throughout South Wales and the west of England, had just 79.7% trains turning up on time during the last three months of 2007.

The data, released by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), shows FGW lagged more than 15% behind Chiltern Railways, the top rated operator for punctuality with 95.6% of their trains arriving on time.

A rail passenger watchdog last night spoke of its “disappointment” at the firm’s woeful performance in an area which should be a “very basic requirement”.

Simon Pickering, Wales manager for Passenger Focus, said, “When we conducted our own research into what Welsh rail users want, punctuality came second only to value for money, so clearly it’s very important to First Great Western passengers.

“Punctuality is the very basic requirement passengers want and to be failing on that is not good enough.

“It’s important that all parties involved in running the network get together and implement a strategy that will improve the situation.”

The FGW service was recently branded “unacceptable” by ministers.

In January passengers were hit by above inflation price hikes across the network although FGW’s poor performance prompted fare strikes by some consumers.

Franchise operator FirstGroup was last month forced into moves to increase capacity and fund cheaper tickets at FGW. The ORR is currently overseeing a joint performance improvement plan – developed by Network Rail and FGW – aimed at improving performance on its routes.

Michael Lee, the ORR’s director of access planning and performance, said, “Everyone agrees that the performance of services on Network Rail’s Western Route has been poor for far too long.

“The cycle where performance takes a step forward only to take another step back is not delivering the necessary improvements.

“I have seen for myself the dedication of people working on this route, and am certain that their first concern is to deliver the best railway they can for passengers and freight customers.

“But that dedication must now start to manifest itself in improved performance on the line.”

The ORR has the power to investigate whether a continued failure to meet targets on a particular part of the network constitutes a breach of Network Rail’s licence.

Mr Lee added, “If targets for this route are not met in the near future, then the consequences for Network Rail could be severe.

“I do not propose, at this stage, to look into whether Network Rail is in breach of its licence – but all parties should be clear that this is an option that may be open in the future.”

A spokesman for FGW said, “FGW has accepted that it has not provided the service levels its customers deserve and we have put in place an improvement plan that has been agreed with the Department for Transport.

“We are already seeing improved performance and this includes our latest Public Performance Measure figures and cancellation rates – we need to do better to deliver consistently across the FGW Network for all our customers, but we are moving in the right direction.”

The company behind FGW said yesterday it was on track to deliver a £29m improvement package, as demanded by the Government, and added that its rail revenue growth had increased by more than 10% in the 12 months to March.

The company has also looked to protect its rail revenues by installing automated ticket gates at key stations across the network to reduce fare-dodging.

Despite the issues with First Great Western, First said that punctuality rates at its other three rail franchises were higher than 90%.

First’s other rail franchises are First ScotRail, First Capital Connect and First TransPennine Express, making it the UK’s largest rail operator.