Train reliability hits the buffers as annual cancellations exceed 360,000
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More than 360,000 train services across Britain were fully or part-cancelled in the past year as reliability is at a joint record low amid major staffing shortages. PA news agency analysis of the latest Office of Rail and Road data found 208,000 services were fully axed in the year to November 9.
A further 161,000 were part-cancelled, meaning they did not serve at least one of their scheduled stops. The rail industry produces a cancellations score – counting full cancellations as one and part-cancellations as half – which shows the equivalent of 4.0% of the 7.3 million trains planned in that period were cancelled.
That is the joint worst reliability performance in figures dating back to March 2015, when the annual cancellations score was just 1.9%. Services are being particularly badly disrupted on Sundays as many operators rely on train drivers or guards volunteering to work paid overtime on that day.
Great Western Railway, Northern and ScotRail are among the operators affected. Rail journalist Tony Miles, of Modern Railways magazine, said: “Much of (the poor performance) is to do with a failure of successive governments to really resolve the staffing issues on rail, and that includes getting a proper seven-day railway in the terms and conditions (of train crew) – and recruiting enough staff – so they don’t have to rely on overtime and rest-day working.
