Passengers using many parts of the GB rail network are suffering from poor performance.
Train cancellations are at record levels, and an ORR investigation confirmed a further gap between cancellations statistics and the passenger experience.
This was driven by an increased number of unrecorded ‘pre-cancellations’.
Such ‘pre-cancellations’ (via a process known as ‘p-coding') can be confirmed as late as 22:00 the previous evening and are not included in the timetables that railway performance statistics are measured against.
For a passenger this could mean that a train they expected to catch when they went to bed can disappear from the timetable by the time they leave for the station unaware that the train has been cancelled.
Historically such changes have been made to support the introduction of emergency timetables when poor weather or infrastructure damage has required a whole-scale change to train service on a route. Service performance is measured against the published replacement (emergency) timetable instead.
The regulator finds that over the last year this mechanism has been used differently.
Late changes have been made to timetables by withdrawing services when insufficient staff or no appropriate trains are available. ORR says this is an inappropriate application of the Network Code’s provisions on emergency timetables.
ORR has written to all train companies telling them to stop using this inappropriate approach and to ask Network Rail to coordinate the industry to come up with a better way of doing things.
Until this takes full effect, ORR requires all train companies to supply specific data on any ‘resource availability shortage pre-cancellations’. ORR will publish this data alongside official statistics in the future, ensuring full public transparency.
Feras Alshaker, Director, Planning & Performance, said,