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INFORMED SOURCES July 2005

Performance improved in 2004-05

Having shone in train reliability, NEG shows that ownership also counts in TOC performance

When dealing with statistics you need long runs to make sense of the data. That is why this column restricts itself to an annual review of train reliability and also avoids commenting on the quarterly PPM figures.

But with the PPM figures for 2004/05 available, it is instructive to see how the industry has performed in a year when the pressure has really been on to improve performance. PPM, the Public performance Measure, is a composite statistic which combines punctuality and reliability. Unlike the old Passengers' Charter it covers all scheduled services, seven days a week and measures the performance of each train against the timetable.

Table 1

TOC PPM Period 13 2004-05

(Ranked by MAA PPM)

Table 1 shows how each TOC performed and, while egalitarian ATOC won't like it, separates the Fiennes clones from the fined clowns, by ranking them in order of their moving annual average (MAA) for the year.

Now the last time I wrote on this subject, suggesting that MerseyRail, c2c and Chiltern had it easier than most because of their ‘closed' system, I got a well merited rap over the knuckles from Chiltern. Quite reasonably they pointed out that at the Southern end of the route they share tracks with London Underground while at the North they run into the West Midlands mayhem.

So unweighted congratulations to the three members of the 90% plus club. And see the box for my personal experience of how PPM translates into changing travel habits.

Comparison of the latest Period figure with the MAA is usually instructive. Here, the good news is that every TOC, bar c2c, did better in P13 than its MAA, which indicates an improving trend. And in the case of c2c, the minus 0.2% difference is just noise, rather than the start of terminal decline. That said, I expect National Express Rail Chief David Franks and his London Lines Ops Director Mark Hopwood have laid down the law in Sarfend.

More good news is that the industry's average PPM for P13 is 87.64%. No 10 Downing Street's aspiration is for an MAA PPM of 85% by September. Barring some major clag-up, this could give Dr Mike Mitchell some positive input as DfT Rail warms up for the forthcoming Periodic Review.

Table 2

P13 improvement as a percentage of P13 MAA

Rather than simply record the difference between P13 and the P13 MAA, I have expressed the improvement as a percentage of the MAA. Table 2 lists those with a score of 5% or better.

Note that Virgin West Coast tops this table, albeit from a very low base. Note, too, that South West Trains is already benefiting from its restructured timetable, although to judge from the barracking at a recent presentation by SWT, not all commuters are reconciled to the changes.

Thameslink has, of course, benefited from the St Pancras blockade, now ended, which prevented ‘pollution' from South of the Thames . Some figures are counter intuitive, with Southern doing better than my perception, while SET is back on 4%.

Table 3

Train operators ranked by improvement in P13 MAA 2004-05 vs 2003-04

Table 3 simply plays around with the data in Table 1 and ranks TOCs by their improvement in MAA. Once again, the St Pancras blockade is reflected in the top two, but c2c and SWT deserve plaudits for significant improvements. And, according to Informed Sources, SWT is continuing to improve in 2005-06.

At the bottom, performance deteriorated at four TOCs. Virgin West Coast has, of course, been struggling with the changeover to the new Pendolino Timetable.

Central Trains is the odd one out in the NEG family and while it has long and rambling services centred on Birmingham New Street . But so does Virgin Cross Country which is better both in absolute terms and year-on-year improvement, while having far fewer trains to go wrong. However, on the short term indicator (Table 2) Central and Cross Country have almost identical improvements in P13 over the MAA.

While it is only a working hypothesis, the other two TOCs at the bottom of the table have one thing in common. Both have got worse in the first year of new ownership. It will be interesting to see whether the reorganization of the East Anglian franchises and the separation of Trans-Pennine show a similar effect after a full year.

Table 4

Franchisee order of merit

Ownership

In the January analysis of train reliability I suggested that the overall performance of National Express operated fleets was persuading me that ownership of a franchise might affect performance. As you can see in Table 1, National Express dominates the top 10 on MAA, but I thought it would be interesting to have a qualitative measure.

Table 4 shows the result, a simple order of merit obtained by adding up the positions in the MAA ranking and dividing by the number of TOCs owned by a franchisee to get the average. Thus Serco/NedRail have a first and a ninth for a score of 10 and an average of 5.

Obviously, this flatters/penalizes those with only one TOC, but if you discount the singletons, you do get a credible order of merit. And for National Express to come a close second to Serco/NedRail, despite the dismal performance of Central, strengthens my conversion to the view that ownership matters.

National Express may be serial offenders against artistic and linguistic sensibilities with their lairy liveries and numbskull nomenclature, bud their operators and engineers know how to run a railway,

Continues.........