The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) in Britain has released its annual assessment of the industry, which highlights its shortcomings and merits and establishes priorities for the coming year.
The rail industry must change the way it works together so it is better able to meet the challenges of climate change and deliver the safe, punctual and reliable railway that passengers and freight expect and deserve, John Larkinson, Office of Rail and Road chief executive, said in an address to industry members.
The regulator has set out its annual assessment of the industry and priorities for the year ahead:
ORR: 3.8% of passenger trains were cancelled
Punctuality and cancellations: Performance has largely stabilised across the railway, with the exception of the Wales and Western region, but the network did not cope well with severe weather during autumn and winter.
Between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024 across Britain, 3.8% of passenger trains were cancelled, which remains close to the worst performance since this measure was introduced. 67.6% of passenger trains arrived on time and 90.3% of freight trains arrived within 15 minutes of booked arrival time.
In Scotland, ScotRail achieved 89.4% of trains arriving at their final destination within five minutes of their scheduled arrival time, against a target of 92.5%, and 2.3% of trains were cancelled, an improvement (0.6 percentage points) from the previous year.
ORR says there is more work to be done. It is therefore imperative that, working with industry partners, Network Rail continues to deliver on its performance improvement plans.
Passengers on Network Rail’s Wales and Western region, which includes passengers travelling from London Paddington, continue to experience frequent lateness and cancellations. ORR’s recent investigation concluded that Network Rail breached its licence and ORR has required the company to produce an improvement plan by 31 August. The regulator has warned that if Network Rail fails to develop an adequate plan it retains the option to implement a last resort penalty of GBP 3 million.
Health and Safety: ORR’s new Chief Inspector of Railways, Richard Hines recognised the industry’s continued high standards which contribute to Britain continuing to have one of the safest railways in Europe. But, climate-related changes are impacting on our infrastructure and operations, with the rate of high consequence earthworks failures at its highest since 2008.
Network Rail must continue its progress in following ORR’s recommendations to speed up its surveys of the condition of its structures and ensures the work to improve drainage asset knowledge, integrity, and the provision of competent inspection and maintenance resource, continues. The focus on maintenance is critical at a time where more maintenance is needed to compensate for reduced renewals.
Richard Hines also emphasised that in the year ahead, there is likely to be change in the industry and the need for these changes to be managed well to ensure no distraction from crucial frontline activities and to deliver a healthy and safe railway, every day, without fail.
Consumers: ORR has secured improvements for passengers by demanding that private ticket retailers are upfront with their booking fees. ORR has also provided analysis to support halving the maximum refund fee to GBP 5 and secured better online notifications of changes to pre-booked trains.
On the provision of passenger assistance, our recent survey showed that, while satisfaction remains relatively high, improvements in reliability seen last year have not been sustained. ORR will be establishing new benchmarks for assessing each operator and station owner against delivery of assistance for disabled passengers, as well as assessing compliance with required communication protocols to coordinate assistance between stations.
Network Rail delivered its GBP 4 billion efficiency targets
Value for money: Network Rail has delivered its GBP 4 billion efficiency targets for the previous five-year control period, CP6, which ended in April 2024. This was despite increasing inflationary pressures and the impact of severe weather. We recognise the continued pressures of maintaining efficiency and will monitor Network Rail’s progress. Network Rail has targets to deliver further substantial efficiencies in the next five years and ORR will produce an assessment of the robustness of this plan in the autumn.
“Network Rail has successfully delivered its efficiency targets for the year, which is good news for those who fund the railway – passengers and taxpayers. And it is positive that it has largely stabilised train performance, although we needed to take enforcement action on the Wales and Western region to secure improvement for passengers and freight. I’m pleased that the company has committed to delivering a performance improvement plan to us for the region.
There is pressure on Network Rail from climate change, ageing assets and the need to increase maintenance work to compensate for reduced renewals spend. The company needs to maintain safety, improve train performance and deliver further efficiencies against this backdrop. Now more than ever, achieving this will require increased close working with train operators,” John Larkinson, ORR chief executive said.
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