Train reliability at record low as more than one in 25 services are axed
More than 217,000 services were fully cancelled in the year to February 1, PA news agency analysis found.
Reliability on Britain’s railways has reached a record low with more than one in 25 services cancelled in the past year, as operators are suffering from industrial disputes and staffing shortages.
More than 217,000 services were fully axed in the year to February 1, PA news agency analysis of the latest Office of Rail and Road (ORR) data found.
A further 165,000 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 4.09% of the 7.3 million trains planned in that period were cancelled.
That is the worst reliability performance in figures dating back to March 2015, when the annual cancellations score was just 1.86%.
Rail journalist Tony Miles of Modern Railways magazine attributed the high number of cancellations to “a mixture of industrial relations and staff shortages”.
Mr Miles said operators such as Northern are suffering poor reliability on Sundays as they rely on train crews working paid overtime on those days, which some are refusing to do.
He also warned that retirement rates in the industry are higher than predicted because many employees stop working once their pension pots are “full”.
“Somebody can give three months’ notice to leave, but they may take 12-15 months to replace, and that’s still something the industry is trying to catch up on,” Mr Miles said.
He claimed resolving this would involve the Government “looking again at whether significant recruitment should be allowed, to do away with the need for overtime and rest day working”.
But he expressed doubts that the Treasury is willing to spend money on “a massive recruitment exercise that won’t start to show benefits for five or 10 years”.
Over the past 12 months, reliability was particularly poor in the four weeks to December 7, when the network was affected by three named storms.
The operator with the highest cancellations score in the year to February 1 was CrossCountry at 7.36%.
It has suffered disruption for a number of years, partly because of a driver training backlog and industrial action.
CrossCountry reduced its timetabled services between August 10 and November 9 2024 in an effort to limit on-the-day cancellations, and has been put on a remedial plan to improve its performance.
The operator is owned by Arriva, a subsidiary of US-based infrastructure investor I Squared Capital.
Avanti West Coast had the second highest cancellations score at 7.00%, followed by Northern (5.97%) and Govia Thameslink Railway (5.45%).
The best performing operator was Caledonian Sleeper – which runs overnight services between London and Scotland – with a score of 1.11%.
The figures do not include services removed from timetables as late as 10pm on the previous night – known as P-coding – which is done more by some operators than others.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “This Government has inherited a broken railway system, characterised by frustrating delays and levels of cancellation that have left people losing faith in our transport system.
“That is why we’ve kicked off the biggest overhaul of the railways in a generation, bringing services back into public ownership and putting passengers at the heart of everything we do.
“We have been clear we will not tolerate poor performance, and ministers continue to meet with leaders of the worst performing operators to address unacceptable services and demand immediate action.”
A spokesperson for the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators, said: “We know how important reliability and punctuality is to customers.
“The rail industry is working hard to maintain as many services as possible, but delays and cancellations can occur due to various factors like weather and flooding, industrial action, infrastructure issues such as track or signalling faults, train faults and external incidents such as trespass.”
A CrossCountry spokesperson said: “Over the last six months we have implemented a number of changes across the service that have reduced cancellations and improved punctuality.
“However, we recognise that there is more work to be done to ensure we consistently meet high service standards, improve performance and provide a more resilient service.
“We continue to work with the Department for Transport and Network Rail to deliver further improvements for our customers and the communities we serve.”
