The UK rail regulator Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has imposed a £2m fine on Network Rail (NR) over missing punctuality targets in 2014-2015.
The investigation carried out by ORR concluded that NR’s delivery of Southern, Govia Thameslink (GTR) and Scottish services was below expectations and had resulted in massive disruption, especially at London Bridge station.
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The operators accounted for a third of punctuality delays and nearly half the cancelled and significantly delayed services in England and Wales.
The ORR investigation found that NR did not do everything reasonably practicable to deliver the reliability and punctuality needed to support the train services provided by the operators.
The severe disruption for passengers was caused due to NR’s timetabling failures and lack of planning for network upgrades.
Network Rail managing director of network operations Phil Hufton said: "At the start of this year, we had a number of problems that caused passengers disruption and frustration and we apologise for this.
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By GlobalData"Since then, we have proactively invested over £11m to improve performance for Southern and Thameslink passengers.
"This investment, which has seen the introduction of a revised timetable, improved equipment, the deployment of rapid-response maintenance teams at London Bridge as well as new information screens and better passenger information, is paying dividends and passenger service reliability has now improved by almost 12% since January.
"While the nuts and bolts of our infrastructure are the most reliable they’ve even been, severe congestion caused by record numbers of trains and passengers makes delivering a consistently reliable service a daily challenge for ourselves and the train operators.
"At London Bridge we are undertaking the biggest and most complex station and track redevelopment ever attempted on the UK’s railways – while simultaneously continuing to keep services running."
ORR’s analysis also showed that in Scotland, there were several errors in the December 2014 timetable caused by a number of factors, including a lack of quality assurance and detailed planning.
ORR chief executive Richard Price said: "Our investigation has identified important issues that Network Rail, working with operators, needs to address to improve performance for passengers on these routes.
"Our analysis shows that the company needs to develop a much better understanding of the impact of timetabling on the reliability of services and on rail users.
"These serious issues have caused severe disruption and frustration for passengers, most notably affecting services at and around London Bridge. ORR is therefore imposing a £2m fine on Network Rail – a decision we did not take lightly.
"The scale of the delays suffered by passengers was central to our decision to fine. The penalty sends a clear message to the Network Rail Board; Network Rail must urgently rectify these errors and deliver the reliability of services that passengers have paid for."
ORR noted that Network Rail will either have to pay the fine or offer reparations to passengers who were affected by the delays and cancellations.
Image: A busy station in the UK. Photo: courtesy of Network Rail.
