Tube delays get worse

Tube passengers are now suffering worse delays than a year ago, new figures reveal today.

Today's figures show London Underground missed four out of six reliability targets between July and September last year, with industrial action and summer floods primarily to blame.

The "excess" time passengers waited or were delayed on a train rose from an average of 3.2 minutes to 3.4, breaching the 3.3-minute target.

Performance improved towards the end of the period, when the number of trains was the highest for seven years, taking delays to a six-year low. But the report reveals the extent of the fall-out from the RMT's 24-hour strike at the end of June.

Then, only one in five trains ran, while August flooding saw almost 15 per cent of services cancelled and two further days of chaos on the Metropolitan line.

On the buses, services were more reliable than ever. Passengers on the 300 high-frequency routes faced average delays of just 1.1 minutes before their buses turned up.

But performance on both Tube and buses still fell short of achievements in the 1990s, prior to their handover to the Mayor and Transport for London. Then, according to TfL's own figures, 99 per cent of buses and 97 per cent of Tubes ran to schedule. TfL claimed today that the figures were not directly comparable.

A spokesman said the four targets were only missed narrowly, noting TfL was on target to hit or exceed all measures by the end of the year.