Key Facts
Britain has the fastest growing railway in Europe with passenger numbers and freight volume continuing to grow every year.
Freight has grown by over 60% in the past ten years
An average of 3.15 million people made over 1.2 billion journeys last year
In 2007/08, 89.9% of trains ran on time – the highest figure in recorded history
In 2007/08, 1,039km of rail and 763km of sleepers were renewed
In 2007/08, we invested around £4bn in the rail network
In the year to 31 March 2008 the cost of running the railway fell by £178m in real terms
Performance and Financial Results
Our performance and financial results demonstrate the improvements that we have made in the railway.
Overall Performance for Period 8 2008/09
Note: Latest information correct at time of publication.
Period 8 Public Performance Measure (PPM) Moving Annual Average (MAA) is at 90.7%, up 0.1 percentage points since last period and up 1.9 percentage points since P8 last year. Period 8 actual performance was 87.6%, up 1.6 percentage points on Period 8 last year.
PPM Results by period
PPM (ACTUAL) – 91.7% - Period 8 (12 October – 8 November 2008)
PPM (MAA) – 87.6% - Period 8 (12 October – 8 November 2008)
Breakdown of Overall Delay Minutes
- The total number of industry delay minutes has reduced by 12.7% for the thirteen periods ending 8 November 2008, compared to the thirteen periods ending 10 November 2007.
- Network Rail delay minutes in Period 8 were 671k, a decrease of 7.7% on Period 8 last year.
- TOC-on-Self delay minutes in Period 8 were 357k, a decrease of 6.0% on Period 8 last year.
- TOC-on-TOC delay minutes in Period 8 were 143k, a decrease of 9.5% on Period 8 last year.
PPM Methodology
The PPM combines figures for punctuality and reliability into a single performance measure. Unlike the Charter, it covers all scheduled services, seven days a week.
The PPM measures the performance of individual trains against their planned timetable (see below).
The PPM is therefore the percentage of trains ‘on time’ compared to the total number of trains planned.
A train is defined as ‘on time’ if it arrives within five minutes (i.e. 4 minutes 59 seconds or less) of the planned destination arrival time on London and South East or regional operators, or 10 minutes (i.e. 9 minutes 59 seconds or less) on long distance operators.
Where a train fails to run its entire planned route calling at all timetables stations it will either be shown as Cancelled (if it runs less than half of its planned mileage) or will be added to the trains in the ‘20 minutes or more’ lateness band.
Trains which complete their journey as planned are measured for punctuality at their final destination. A train’s performance is generally recorded by the automated monitoring systems, which log performance using signalling equipment.
As described above, PPM compares the actual performance of the train service with the plans held in the computer systems. These plans, technically called ‘Plan of the Day’, are usually the same as the published timetable with amendments reflecting pre-published engineering amendments. However, after the Hatfield accident, there was a period when the plans were unstable – sometimes they reflected the normal timetable, sometimes a temporary timetable which was rendered inoperable by changes to the speed restrictions or flooding and sometimes they reflected the actual service the operators were trying to run in response to unanticipated events.
Delay Minute Methodology
A delay minute is defined as a measure equating to one train being delayed for one minute when compared with the timetabled journey time between two points.
The main data set used for reporting both the TOCs and Network Rail delays is the Industry Period Performance Report (IPPR). However, IPPR sets all delays in dispute to the TOC. The purpose of developing the adjusted data series was to apportion the disputed delay minutes to the TOCs and Network Rail in line with a likely outcome of dispute resolution.
It is the adjusted data series that is used in the “Breakdown of Overall Delay Minutes (MAA Adjusted) by Responsible Party” graph shown above.