Northern rail service performance ‘worse than a year ago’, report finds

Northern train

Rail operator Northern’s performance is worse than it was a year ago, a report by Transport for the North has found.

Rail officials say the reliability of Northern has fallen compared to this time last year, and its level of performance has continued to deteriorate since December 2018.

Significant events across Greater Manchester were given as causes for affecting reliability in July, including unit faults at Eccles and Daisy Hill, plus flooding at Heaton Chapel and Heald Green.

Between 25 July to 21 August, Northern’s public performance measure averaged 79.4%, with an average of 139 trains (5.3%) cancelled, or part cancelled, each day.

The public performance measure considers trains to be punctual if they are five or 10 minutes after schedule, for short and long-distance trains respectively, at their destination.

Between 9 December 2018 to 18 May 2019, the public performance measure averaged 86.8%.

Of the cancellations, approximately 35% were caused by other train operators or Network Rail. An average of 90 trains per day were cancelled or part cancelled due to Northern-related causes.

Data provided by Northern also shows that an estimated 114 passengers are unable to board each day.

David Hoggarth, Strategic Rail Director for Transport for the North, said: “The fact that rail passengers in the North are still faced with unreliable services is symptomatic of a transport network in need of strategic investment. The latest report is clear that the performance of the operating companies is below what it should be and we are concerned about the ongoing resilience of the network and the erosion of passenger trust.

“Whilst some improvements have been introduced by Northern, it is not good enough for passengers to still be facing delays and cancellations. Our Northern leaders have been clear, through both the Blake Jones and Williams reviews, that the way forward is to devolve more accountability and transparency to our region and to properly invest in the North’s transport networks. Passengers’ interests should come first – and we’ll continue to press for the rail industry to adopt this focus.

“Should this fail to happen, we expect government to intervene and act on our Northern leaders’ recommendations to ensure our communities have a rail network they can rely on.”

A spokesperson for Northern said: “Our performance has been steadily improving over the past 12 months as we have worked hard to bring stability and reliability to our services. We know there is more to do, and our customers were impacted over the summer by extreme weather causing flooding and damage to overhead lines and disruption to many rail services across the country.

“Northern is delivering the biggest transformation of local rail for a generation, with 18 of our 101 new trains already in service and driver training on a further 20 trains taking place right now.”