The trains now arriving... are a record 90% on time

Record numbers of trains are now running on time, Network Rail announced today.

It said annual punctuality has reached the 90 per cent mark for the first time since records began in 1992. A total of 90.6 per cent of trains were on time in the 12 months to March, while the figure for April was a monthly record of 93.5 per cent.

The best-performing company in 2008/09 was the London to Tilbury and Southend operator c2c, which achieved a trains-on-time figure of 95.3 per cent. Chiltern and Merseyrail also reached the 95 per cent mark.

Virgin Trains and London Midland did significantly worse than the previous year due to disruption caused by the £9billion upgrade of the West Coast Main Line, completed last December.

The biggest year-on-year improvement was by First Great Western — up from 83.1 per cent to 90.5 per cent. Train punctuality plummeted at the beginning of this decade when speed restrictions were introduced after the Hatfield rail crash in October 2000.

When NR took over responsibility for infrastructure from Railtrack in 2002, punctuality was below 79 per cent. NR's operations and customer service director Robin Gisby said: "Passengers are today experiencing the most punctual train service ever provided. Our focus in years ahead will be to drive performance to even higher levels, with particular attention to reducing the number of very late services."

Alec McTavish, of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said: "This is a significant achievement by all parts of the industry, particularly as we ran an additional one million more timetabled trains last year than British Rail did just before privatisation."

But Gerry Doherty, leader of the TSSA transport union, said: "These figures are just spin and poppycock. NR is comparing itself with the worst levels of performance achieved by Railtrack, the little-lamented private rail firm. It is not comparing itself with BR, a public-sector service that got far better results than NR at a fifth of the cost."

A train is deemed to be on time if it arrives within five minutes of its schedule for commuter services and 10 minutes for long-distance services. Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Norman Baker said: "Passengers mustn't be hoodwinked by the results. "It's not good enough to record that half a million trains were within five minutes of their schedule. On time should mean on time."