Rail companies are bracing themselves for tough new targets designed to more than halve the record number of cancelled trains.
Train firms believe Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander is preparing to set Great British Railways a target of cutting cancellations to two per cent of journeys as part of the renationalisation of the railways.
An average of 5.1 per cent of 1.8m planned services were cancelled between October and December last year across Great Britain, the most recent period for which figures are available.
This involved 70,000 full cancellations and 48,300 part-cancellations, when a train did not run the length of expected route.
Northern Trains, which is under Government control, had the highest rate of cancellations in the country at 11.5 per cent.
Of the London-based operators, Avanti West Coast cancelled 6.9 per cent of its 21,700 trains due to run over the three-month period – of which 53 per cent were its fault – while GoVia Thameslink cancelled 6.6 per cent of its 273,000 services.
Lumo, a low cost “open access” operator that runs between King’s Cross and Edinburgh via Stevenage and Newcastle, had the lowest cancellation rate – one per cent of its 877 services planned in the last three months of the year.
One rail insider said Ms Alexander, who last month introduced the display of punctuality statistics at key rail stations, would use the establishment of Great British Railways to set a two per cent cancellation target.
The source said it was a “big stretch for where the railways are now” but added: “It’s two per cent too much.”
It is not clear what sanctions train operators would face if they failed to hit the target.
A source close to Ms Alexander did not confirm the two per cent target but said the Transport Secretary’s priority was to reduce cancellations by recruiting as many train drivers as possible and ensure “rigorous performance management” of train companies.
SWR cancelled 4.8 per cent of trains in the most recent period, Greater Anglia 1.8 per cent and c2c 1.5 per cent.
It comes after a row between some “open access” operators and the Department for Transport over the way punctuality and cancellation data is published.
Open access firms – who run far fewer trains than major operators such as London North Eastern Railway – say it can only take one cancelled train a day to result in a 20 per cent cancellation rate, which they believe gives a misleading impression to the wider public.
By contrast, operators such as Northern can cancel thousands of trains but still have a comparatively low cancellation rate.
Homerton station in Hackney was the worst in the capital, with 9.22 per cent of trains cancelled in the four weeks to February 1, according to the station punctuality data.
