In the three months that constitute Quarter 2, around 122,600 trains ran late as Network Rail posted performance that varied between 0.9 and 5.1 percentage points behind its targets. These figures are from the Office of Rail Regulation and it comments that NR is likely to miss all its passenger performance targets for the year that ends next March.
It’s long-distance travellers that suffer the worst performance. For them, 86.6% of trains run on time, against a target of 92.0%. NR is not the only cause of delay, train operators also suffer from failed trains or lack of crew that leads to delays or cancellations. But NR carries the bulk of delays with ORR revealing that 70% of delay minutes for Virgin lie at NR’s door. For East Coast, NR’s share is 67%. For First Great Western, it’s 56%.
ORR goes on to reveal that NR has massively underspent the funding allowed by the regulator for maintenance and renewals. The figure is now £1.2bn over the first four years of the current five-year control period. It reports an increase of 34% in delays attributed to track faults compared with last year. ORR reckons that the rise in delays can be linked to NR not spending as much as it should to maintain its network.
Yet remember the figure of 122,600 delayed trains? There’s another large number that should be considered. And that’s 148,000. It’s the number of extra services that NR is accommodating nationally compared with the same time period in 2008/09. When you add these extra trains to a huge programme of enhancements (think Reading) and at the same time stir in maintenance and renewals then you find that NR is trying to do more with less time.
It’s a difficult problem and now NR faces being fined by ORR for not delivering the railway it promised for the funding ORR permitted. Or put another way, NR will be fined for not spending quickly enough.