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I mentioned the following in the Thames Valley Signalling Problems thread:


To make it easier to find (easier than it is on the GWR website, anyway!), I thought I'd start a new topic which I'll update monthly.  I'll concentrate on HSS and LTV as they are the ones that are performing worst, compared with target's and trigger values.

The previous period's results have now been published, and it was another good month for GWR.  HSS scored 92.3% for punctuality, which lifted the MAA up to 89.3%.  LTV (which has a trigger at 89%) managed 88.4%, though the MAA actually dropped slightly to 84.5%.  Some way to go until 89% is threatened, but another encouraging period.

I would expect the next period to be more challenging as the ongoing unit shortages due to HEx Class 332's still undergoing repair, and a Rest Day Work ban which is ongoing in the drivers grade, are all making it harder to run a punctual service.

The attached graph shows the figures for the last three periods.

Apparently, the check of the 332s revealed a dozen needing attention....

Every MD's biggest nightmare (bar a serious accident) is an issue which results in a fleet of trains being withdrawn from their TOC's use.

Just imagine the disruption if the Turbo or High Speed Train (HST) fleet had to get withdrawn for similar reasons!  I seem to remember there was a close call regarding the Turbo fleet back in the Thames Trains days.

Edit: VickiS - clarifying acronym

Virgin CrossCountry and Virgin West Coast had a Voyager fleet withdrawal back in May 2005. Just for one day but it was a Bank Holiday Monday. I remember well the chaos that caused as I was working as an FGW Customer Service temp at Temple Meads at the time.

Cause was a door mechanism that 'exploded', injuring a fitter.

A surprisingly good period for GWR, given the Rest Day ban that's currently in force.

HSS recording punctuality of 92.4% and LTV 88.5% - both marginally better than last month, though the MAA (Moving Annual Average) dropped marginally.  Plymouth & Cornwall services recorded an outstanding 99.1%.  Reliability was over 99% for all sectors, though I would expect the Rest Day ban to have more of an effect on both performance and reliability next period and we've already had one day where both morning and evening services fell apart for the LTV and HSS sectors!

LTV continues to be the only sector below the trigger rate on performance, thus giving a 5% renewal discount.

Usual graph for LTV/HSS punctuality attached:

Remember delays & cancellations owing to events outside railway control are excluded from these stats.

Yes, indeed.  So, for example, delays/cancellation caused by yesterday's fatality would be excluded, but signalling problems at Southall and damage caused by an engineering train on April 4th and ongoing delays/cancellations caused by driver shortages would not be excluded.

A very impressive set of results for April, considering the on-going driver rest day work ban and a couple of days of significant infrastructure failures.

93.3% punctuality for HSS was enough to lift the Moving Annual Average (MAA) of the HSS sector to within a whisker of the target - just under two percentage points above the discount trigger for season tickets.  The LTV result of 91.8% was just under the target of 92% and meant the MAA rose 0.8% to 85.2% - still very low, but if this recent performance continues it won't be long before it's heading towards the 89% trigger target.

May was a bad month for punctuality on the HSS and LTV routes.  HSS recorded 89.1% which was the first time it's been below the target over for the last six months.  LTV recorded a very poor 83.2% punctuality (and its reliability figure was also low at 98.5%), though this only meant a 0.2% drop in the Moving Annual Average - so last May must've been pretty poor!  All the other sectors posted more respectable results however.

Usual graph attached:

So approximately 1 in 5 of London and Thames Valley (LTV) services were late in May, is it any wonder why London and Thames Valley (LTV) commuters are cheesed off?

Edit: VickiS - clarifying acronym

Yes, and most commuters would have experienced worse than that as some of the 'bankers' such as the Slough-Windsor and Twyford-Henley services (which usually run on time and frequently) help to massage the figures on what is recorded on the services into Paddington.  Overall though the trend (for the last six months) is an improving one.  The key is to accept that the odd bad month will happen, but to make sure it's as an exception rather than the rule.  That often wasn't the case last year, and TOC's like Southern make you realise that some people have it worse - their figures have been in the 70s percentage wise four out of the last seven months, dipping as low as 72.6%!   :o

Surprisingly good results for GWR for the last period, given the massive disruption caused by the derailment outside Paddington, which in itself caused over 3000 delay minutes and 200 cancellation IIRC.  Presumably those figures would have been added to the results?  Certainly the reliability figures took quite a hit, down at 97.0% for HSS and 97.3% for LTV - around 2% less than average, but the punctuality at 89.6% and 88.6% were actually better than those recorded on the previous month.

Usual punctuality graph attached...

Once a revised timetable announced, delays are marked against that, rather than the original timetable. So the Cardiff cancellations would be excluded, once GWR had announced they would only run once an hour, for example

Yes, I thought that was the case.  How long does it take for those exclusion rules to apply though?  Presumably all services on the evening it happened would have to be included, so perhaps a surprise to see the figures hold up so well if that was the case?  I was looking at the daily summary for the month though, and apart from the disruption caused by that incident, the rest of the month did look pretty good.

And there was me thinking that the total closure of all lines might warrant a void day. Silly me.

Seriously???

You really couldn't make it up could you? So were there any void days as a result?

Maybe I'll raise this at the next Meet The Manager session.
Oh no, I can't, because they cancelled all means of face to face contact.

Overnight. Published the evening before for the following day is good enough.

Also, bear in mind that the public PPM charter figures are *peak* trains only, so nothing after 1900 affects the stats. There is an all-day measure, but that is not the charter discount PPM.

Yes, I was forgetting that.  Given the incident happened mid way through the peak, that would probably explain why the figures held up so well.  Bring on 'Delay Repay' I say, as there's no way such a large, disruptive incident should have such a small effect on the figures used to determine renewal discounts for season tickets.  And I agree that a void day should have been declared, as per the definition GWR themselves provide - is it too late for that to happen?

Yes - as the day's figures would then be excluded from the Charter PPM stats.

Careful what you wish for - While Delay/Repay would get seasons compensation for this sort of an event, regular poor performance of over 10mins but less than 30mins affects the charter PPM, but would render zilch on Delay/Repay.....so under this scheme seasons might get 5% renewal discount, under delay/repay, there would be nowt.

It works both ways unfortunately.

I wish for a fairer system for passengers - one that reflects delays which they experience.  Apart from the 5% LTV discount, no other GWR season is discounting (or even close to hitting the discount trigger), so whilst there may be the odd loser (a Slough to Windsor commuter for example), it's a far fairer system for the majority.

*IF* they suffer the odd long delay, yes.

But regular poor timekeeping (of the type LTV are suffering, hence the 5% discount) of less than 30mins will mean that they can lose out quite easily

So really then these performance figures don't reflect the chaotic reality which the derailment caused, they reflect the rest of the month along with a few days of performance against an "amended timetable"?

It'd be interesting to see the true picture, incorporating all the cancellations and delays which the incident caused.

This seems to be a very handy "Get out of jail free" card for GWR - if there's serious disruption which will knacker your stats, simply declare an "amended timetable" and be measured against that rather than what actually happened?

Sounds like it is more efficient for GWR to have an elite team of timetable writers and a good relationship with the print room than to try and run a train service to schedule. 😉

Not just GWR - them's the rules written into each franchise. Gets the taxpayer more money from the franchise process, doncha know.

You can get much more information on the all day PPM scores here, see the 'Daily' and 'Recent Performance' tabs, but I'm pretty sure it was around 3000 delay minutes and 200 cancellations for the first day of the disuption.

https://www.firstgroup.com/uktrain/kpi/gw/ (https://www.firstgroup.com/uktrain/kpi/gw/)

Latest graph attached.  Not an especially impressive month of stats, especially for HSS at only 86.8%, but the LTV MAA has risen by 0.4% so it must've been a lot better than this time last year.

Latest graph attached.  A pretty good month of figures given the widespread service alterations as a result of the engineering blockade at Hinksey.  The LTV figure exceeded the charter discount trigger for only the second time this year.

Latest graph attached and it was a pretty awful period, with LTV services barely recording 80% and HSS only a couple of percentage points better.  The Moving Annual Average also took quite a hit as a result.

Latest graph attached with another month of figures.  Both LTV and HSS hardly setting the world alight, but an improvement on last month's very poor figures and the Moving Annual Average hasn't suffered as a result.  It will be interesting to see what effect the rush hour signalling problems we had recently has on the figures for the next period, as that very poor week of delays started the day after the attached graph is for.

Bear in mind any performance better than the equivalent period last year will see their figures improve, even if it's an appalling period (but still better than last year's equivalent. It's a 12 month rolling average

Yes indeed.  Hence the MAA for the LTV service slowly creeping up over the last year despite the odd very poor month.  Autumn and winter weather also play a crucial role as last years very mild winter (contrary to Daily Express predications) meant the railways had it pretty easy.  This Autumn has so far been very benign, but should windy and wet conditions hit us in November then that could also hit the figures hard.

Here's the last period of figures which covers the first of the two periods most prone to leaf-fall related delays.

The LTV sector recorded 80.3% which sounds pretty bad (well, it is!), but much better than the equivalent month last year as the Moving Annual Average rose 0.3% to 85.7%.  Not quite so good on HSS with an 81.8% dragging the MAA down to 88.9%.

To be honest, this is pretty meaningless from a customer experience perspective, unless there is another chart showing the true picture, incorporating all the cancellations and delays without all the permitted "exclusions".

You want the 'Right Time' stats.....some TOCs do publish them. Includes all delays and shows stats for delays of 5mins or more

I do agree with you in part, though its fair to say that a good month for charter figures is more than likely a good month for all day figures including exclusions.  That's another reason why delay repay is a better system of compensation when we eventually get it on GWR - especially the new 15 minute claim threshold.

There are more detailed provisional figures published on a daily basis including all services operated by GWR and they can be found at:  https://www.firstgroup.com/uktrain/kpi/gw/

I don't know how you would do it but the stats apart from measuring a very narrow range don't reflect the customer experience.

My regular train home is normally a moderately crowded 8 coach 125 and on Tuesday was replaced by a 2 coach turbo. I'd guess the performance figures reflect this as running and on time even though most people couldn't board it?

A starting point though would be as Taplow Green says would be figures measuring the whole day.

Then there needs to be a way to measure over crowding, cleaning, toilets out of order, no seat reservations etc.

Aren't the all-day stats generally better than the peak time ones used for the charter figures, even if you were to include things like fatalities?

Regarding the short formed train, those do get recorded and have to be submitted to the DfT IIRC?

For those interested in all-day or specific train performance, there are a number of third-party sites using the freely available data feeds from Network Rail that can help, including:

http://www.recenttraintimes.co.uk

http://www.liveppm.co.uk

Http://www.easignalmap.altervista.org/PPM/

I started a separate topic concerning the far Southwest service performance: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=17665.0

Perhaps it might be better merged to this topic (mods?).

IMHO, if a train is so badly overcrowded that significant numbers of intending passengers are unable to board, then it should be regarded as cancelled when collecting performance data.

The purpose of running the service is to convey passengers, if from a certain point the train is so crowded that no more passengers can board, then the service if in effect cancelled from that point and this should be reflected in performance data.

Latest charter figures attached and a very poor second leaf fall period which saw LTV drop to just 73.3% punctuality.  That was so low I had to reconfigure the axis of the graph!  The Moving Annual Average (MAA) dropped as a consequence to 85.0% from 85.7%.

HSS fared a little better at 81.2% but that was still the worst period of the year.  Not totally surprising as the leaf fall months are nearly always the worst unless heavy snow or exceptional heat come along.  The MAA dropped half-a-percent to 88.4% which is now just 0.4% above the season ticket 5% discount trigger.  GWR must be very relieved virtually all the leaves have now fallen!

You might ask NR about their treatment train PPM too....TOCs aren't very happy.....

Rather than take other threads off topic this seems a better place to ask about trains that skip stops.

If a service drops some stations and runs non stop does this affect the targets? Are there penalties for doing this or is it only the arrival time at the final stop? When I've looked into this in the past it seems to be the arrival times of certain services between certain times e.g. for Thames Valley all Paddington services between 07.00 and 09.00 (to make up a random example) which would suggest that skipping stations isn't penalised but this was only a short summary.

I'd imagine though the actual performance measure are  not a small document. I think I read somewhere about several pages dedicated to bird strikes and depending on the size of bird where responsibility lay and how much.

I don't know how it reflects into performance / penalties fares ... but I do know that an unplanned stop on the fast main lines at Slough, Maidenhead, and Twyford can have a knock-on effect for hours as there's simply no slack in there.   Stops at one of these stations are typically put into services leaving Paddington in the slot ahead of a Heathrow Express service, so that the train after it slowdown, station duties and restart ends up in the slot the HEX would have occupied had it not branched off to the airport.  Move that train a few minutes later and it ends up creating a ripple effect on following trains if it makes the stops ... and that makes the following trains delayed to knock on as they get further west over Cotswold single lines, or with failing connections at places like Swindon.

With a system running so close to capacity, the only remedies are to increase the capacity or improve the reliability / timekeeping;  moving the existing deck chairs around isn't going to provide a solution - just a marginally better set of winner and looser tradeoffs.

Here from Recent Train Times (http://www.recenttraintimes.co.uk/) is the actual arrival time graph for trains at Reading from Paddington in the last 2 weeks, evening peak.   I am struck by a 'wobble' on 13th December at about 18:00 which then pushed everything back for quite a while thereafter; no sudden recovery which provides some evidence for what I've written above.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/tvlates_20161223.jpg)

Good questions which I would also be interested in knowing the answer to. As a user of a station which does get occasionally skipped, I'm well aware that skipping a station may only inconvenience a relatively small number of passengers (though at mine, Oldfield Park, it is normally at least 20 even on the quietest of days) but is a severe inconvenience to those people (who can't make any claim as they haven't actually bought a ticket, but whose journey may then become impossible).

Southern answered this fairly succinctly a while back, in a reply to a critical item in the Guardian.  They said (from memory) that as soon as the decision to skip stops is taken the service is recorded as a PPM failure, even if it recovers time by the final destination.

I've seen this point made in other forums since.  Basically the idea is to write off one service for PPM in the hope that the next (and following) legs of the train's overall diagram are unaffected.

Paul

Very interesting and answers another question I had about why there seems to be a disproportionate number of cancellations (with my inbuilt bias anyway) of fast trains to Maidenhead and Twyford or when this happens why other services can't stop there. Not sure understanding will make me any happier next time it happens though.

Edited to get the quotes right.

Yep - becomes a (part) cancelation & moves to the reliability PPM measure, rather than the performance measure.

Latest figures are attached.  An 'OK' month of figures with HSS at 88.5% and LTV at 83.1%.  That caused the MAA (Moving Annual Average) to drop 0.2% on both groups to 88.2% and 84.8% respectively.

88.2% for HSS is now only 0.2% above the season ticket discount trigger, so I'm sure GWR management are keeping their fingers crossed that the winter remains cold but calm and they can get that figure moving back upwards again!

As it's been a year (13 reporting periods) since I first started these posts, I thought it relevant that I should compare the various MAA's for punctuality at the turn of 2017, with what they were this time last year.

It's not a particularly impressive set of figures to say the least.  The good news first is that the LTV sector rose 0.5% from 84.3% to 84.8%, but that's where the good news ends as all other groups saw their figures fall - some by well over 1%.  Here's the details, with the 2016 figure first, then the 2017 figure, then the difference between the two:

London Thames Valley services:  84.3%     84.8%     Change +0.5%
High Speed Services:  89.0%     88.2%     Change -0.8%
Bristol Suburban Services:  92.2%     90.9%     Change -1.3%
Devon Services:  95.7%     95.2%     Change -0.5%
Plymouth/Cornwall:  98.0%     97.7%     Change -0.3%
Wales to South Coast:  93.6%     92.3%   Change -1.3%

You could argue that these reductions simply mirror the national trend of generally worsening performance, so it isn't really GWR's fault as such, but either way you look at it it's both worrying and depressing for staff/management and users of the service.

I have been a regular on the Cotswold line since 2001 and it was the dark days of 2006/7 that got me involved here when the performance figures both monthly and MAA dipped to around 64%. I used to have the figures gleaned from posters at oxford as FGW as it was then, frequently didn't update their website every month. I had many email exchanges with Alison Forster at the time and also David Cameron who was then just our local MP who arranged for FGW executives to attend a town meeting in Charlbury.

In those days some peak morning trains (e.g. 0730ish train from CBY) didn't run for a whole week!

Another poor month to start the year.  HSS services are now on the trigger point of 88% for the Moving Annual Average, though read the small print and it says: 'The trigger is the point at which we give a discount for season ticket holders. If we don’t meet one of the targets, and fall below the trigger percentage in the last 12 months, we’ll give our season ticket holders 5% off their next season ticket.'

I would argue that if the trigger is 'the point' at which discounts are given then it should not need to 'fall below the trigger percentage' in order for everyone to get 5% off when they renew.  Can anyone clarify?

LTV scored an underwhelming 78.2% for the month, possibly linked to the settling in of the new Hayes electric services, reducing that sector's MAA to 84.1%.  No grey areas over eligibility for 5% off there!

Here's the usual graph:

Hopefully some find this thread useful for the same reasons.

Here's the latest figures and it was indeed a much better month than of late, though slightly worse than this time last year.  The HSS result wasn't good enough to stop the Moving Annual Average dipping below the magic 88% to 87.8% which means the trigger discount for season tickets has now been reached. 

Can anyone enlighten me as to whether this means you have to be renewing your season ticket whilst it remains below this threshold or because it's dipped below at some point during the previous year, even if it rises between now and the end of the year anyone renewing will get the discount?

As its a moving average, the discount applues to purchases made while it is valid, as that rdflects the annual average delay across your season. Any other season will have a different average delay statistic. So the former

Ratbags! :)

They'll have to put in a decent performance on the HSS punctuality stats to bring the average back up with those relatively deep troughs.

I'm yet to receive any meaningful discount from GWR on my season.. their season ticket compensation arrangements really are shocking. I've enjoyed significantly more compensation from Southern Rail and my season only uses a small part of my route with them (just had 1/12th of my annual Didcot -> Zones 1-6 season refunded due to the strike issues last year).

Not a bad month of stats for the latest period, though a few percentage points worse than the same period last year, so as t0m pointed out with the very poor results around the turn of the year and those good results this time last year, the Moving Annual Average (MAA) figure is going to be very difficult to get rising upwards again in the near future.

88.0% and 85.5% for HSS and LTV respectively, saw the MAA fall by 0.2% on both sectors to 87.6% and 83.8%.

and those latest numbers not doing much to help!

Maybe there is hope of getting a season ticket discount (or some better on time performance!)

Latest graph attached, and whilst it was a pretty good month of statistics - the best in nine months for LTV and the best in a year for HSS - the results were still nearly three percentage points lower than the very good results from the same period last year.  The MAA for both sectors dropped another 0.3% as a result.  GWR will be hoping for a benign summer of weather as this was where the performance started to fall off this time last year, so the MAA may start to pick up again if reasonable results are recorded.

Last month's figures are now on the attached graph.  Marginally better than this time last year for HSS and LTV meant recent falls to the MAA's were halted, with the LTV figure raising by 0.1%.  Not on the graphs, but the best figure since I started logging the data 18 months ago was recorded by the Plymouth/Cornwall section at 99.0% punctuality.

These two graphs contain data for the Passenger's Charter figures which only include peak time services.  To give a wider picture of delay trends, I'm going to widen the scope of this thread soon by including graphs for the All-Day Public Performance Measure (PPM) figures, and the All-Day Right Time figures when I have a couple of months worth of data.

Latest figures, showing the results up to 24th June are attached.  This covered the heatwave between 18th-21st June, so probably not surprising to see the results dive-bombing somewhat.

This continues the downward trend of late though, with the Moving Annual Averages of the HSS sector a worrying 3% lower than this time last year, with LTV also down by 2%.

I think the "dive bombing" was probably more to do with infrastructure being unable to cope with pigeons rather than heat.

Or perhaps it was the pigeon that was dive-bombing?

I think I've asked this in the past (or maybe it was about trains not stopping) but how do the stats reflect/cope with short formations? For several days my usual 7/8 coach 125 was replaced with 2 carriage turbo. It may have been on time each day but I have no idea as it was impossible to board.

I don't it counts....missing stops/short running counts as a part-cancellation, but if the train runs as service, it can be any stock without penalty, I understand

Unlike the majority of franchise agreements, GWRs direct award apparently has no provision for short formation benchmarks for performance to be assessed against.

They can therefore substitute with impunity. Most other TOCs performance figures will be negatively impacted by short formations.

Maybe another passenger unfriendly concession FGW/GWR got from the DfT for the direct award.

Reminds me. Delay Repay introduction is now 9 months overdue.

I travelled on the 15:50 from Taunton to Hayle yesterday evening, leaving Taunton after 4 p.m. and arriving at Hayle at a couple of minuted before half past seven.  The train was running a little late due to problems with a level crossing "earlier in the journey" which became "much earlier in the journey" in the announcements once we were in Cornwall. The train was crowded when I joined - though I did manage to sit with a colleague travelling as far as Exeter by grabbing seats no-one else had dared take as they were reserved from Exeter to Penzance; it thinned out after Exeter and was looking very thin indeed as it pulled out of Hayle.

The tardiness of the train made for connection problems. Passngers alighing at Liskeard were instructed to speak with station staff once the train had left as the Looe connection could not be held, and passenger for Newquay were advised to stay on to St Austell for Taxis - later amended to Truro "because there are so many" - I gather it was going to be 5 or 6 taxis.  Passengers for Roche still to change at St Austell (Train Manager had done an excellent jon going throough). Connection to Falmouth was being maintained; St Ives too, I understand.  Never the less, extra costs to GWR mush have been significant.

Train arrived in Penzance at 19:42 versus a schedule of 19:33, which (as I understand it) means it's declared as "on time" for official performance stats.

I think they have 10mins leeway on HST timetable delivery, like most long-distance TOCs

Whilst I think you're both correct that there can be no penalties issued for failing to meet targets, the number of 'seats to plan' is agreed with the DfT, monitored and recorded as a Key Strategic Objective.

Here are details of the results from 2016/17:

All-day seats to plan: 
Target:  98.6%  
Actual: 98.19% (-0.41%)

Peak hours seats to plan at Paddington: 
Target: 96%    
Actual (morning peak): 97.78% (+1.78%)
Actual (evening peak): 98.26% (+2.26%)

Peak hours seats to plan at Bristol:
Target: 97%   
Actual (morning peak): 97.55% (+0.55%)
Actual (evening peak): 97.13% (+0.13%)

Peak hours seats to plan at Exeter: 
Target: 98%     
Actual (morning peak): 97.85% (-0.15%)
Actual (evening peak): 97.94% (-0.06%)

So on that basis, the figures aren't too bad at all, though I would imagine the 2017/8 figures will be less impressive given the recent shortages and the target for all of the KPI's above is rising slightly.

Are there any concrete plans to introduce it? What are the sanctions for not doing so? And what might the implications be for season ticket holders?

Is it an 'aim' or a guarantee? And any actual date mentioned in the contract?

From the Direct Award agreement, which started in September 2015:


Intention and good faith should have seen Delay Repay introduced to the Greater Western area by September 2016. Nine months later and not a peep.

Reality being successful lobbying by First to delay any intention or good faith.

My brother-in-law last week couldn't understand why he was unable to claim compensation for a delay on GWR, but would have been able to if he'd travelled with any other inter-city operator.

Because the DfT, for whatever reason, failed to put a firm comitment into the franchise. Not exactly GWRs fault?

Equally First Group could/should do the decent thing and just honour the 'good faith' and 'co-operation' parts, rather than just doing the bare minimum necessary to not get booted off the franchise.

The latest stats are out.. and not too exciting for GWR. And that's even having declared 2 void days on 5 and 6 July. They took their time announcing those.. suspect it took a while to work out which would be cheapest for them (void days vs. taking an even greater hit on performance stats).

Anybody seen any of the much promised posters / e-mails / letters explaining the compensation to season ticket holders?!

("We will put posters up at our stations, and get in touch with you by email or post.")

I'll add them to the graph later hopefully...

I've been making a point of looking for them and on their website and nothing. I don't want extra days as it takes me into Christmas holidays so hopefully there's no time limit on cash refunds. The only mention I've seen was buried in a twitter conversation with an unhappy customer.

Latest graph attached.  As expected, another bruising month, but perhaps not as bruising as some might have thought.  The void days no doubt helping that situation.  Nevertheless, LTV punctuality at 80.1% was enough to drop the MAA by 0.5% to 82.7%, getting on for 10% below the target and 6.3% below the season ticket discount trigger.  Given the number of cancellations recently highlighted by Taplow Green (amongst others) I thought I'd quote the 'Reliability' stats as well which were at 98.4% for LTV sector giving a current MAA of 98.8 with the discount trigger at 98.0%.  A drop of 0.8% doesn't sound like a lot but given the the high percentages involved things will need to get consistently worse than last months figure for there to be the prospect of 10% off of your season ticket.  I'll keep an eye on the MAA.

Turning to HSS and a punctality recording of 85.8% led to a slight drop in the MAA to 88.6%.  Reliability of HSS stood at 98.6% which gave a MAA of 99.2% which is 1% above the discount trigger, so still quite a long way to go there.  Less impressive is the All-Day Right Time figures for HSS which were at just 35.78%.  Watch out for a graph for that soon!  ;)

Finally, it was a very poor period for the Bristol sector which only managed 78.6% punctuality and 97.1% reliability.  Presumably connected with the poor performance of Turbo's since their introduction on the Severn Beach line?  That means that sector is only 0.6% for punctuality and 0.5% above reliability for the MAA trigger for season ticket discounts.  Again, I'll keep an eye on that one.

Usual graph attached...

Me too - and have seen nothing. GWR and their lack of commitment to season ticket holders is a disgrace. At best it is incompetent, at worst they use that incompetence to actively avoid paying the compensation that they owe.

GWR treat their customers with indifference at best, but more commonly contempt, irrespective of the type of ticket involved but your point about season ticket holders who (especially in the LTV region) no doubt provide the vast majority of ticket income and deserve a bit of loyalty and recognition in return is well made.

I am not sure what proportion of GWR's income comes from each class of fare.  I sure we will never know as it will be classed as commercially sensitive! 

Those of us who make long distance journeys to London several time a month at eye-wateringly high anytime fares per journey (rates per mile much higher than for LTV) along with plenty of others who do the same (the train is full before Reading and yet we are after the time that would get most people to regular work on time) will feel that we are the ones contributing the most. 

The performance page of the website lists the void day's declared.

Which, strangely, is where you'd expect to find this information.

I'm not sure if you're being ironic or not but there's no performance page on the top level menus of the GWR website.

There is buried a couple of levels down a page on season tickets compensation and no mention of it there. Nor is there any mention on the FrontPage.

https://www.gwr.com/help-and-support/refunds-and-compensation/season-ticket-compensation

Edit: found it a couple more levels down in a dropdown. Hardly going out of their way are they?

Look at the bottom of the home page, under "Useful Links".

Which, strangely, is where you'd expect to find this information along with maybe others

It could certainly be more visible.  Worth bookmarking that page though as it contains a lot of useful information.

I fear that's a general trend - dumbing down sites by removing links on the pretext of suiting small screens, or if you're lucky keeping them but in distant exile downpage.

Indeed..although it's not the information I am looking for. The info I want is the mythical information that explains how season ticket holders claim their mythical void day compensation. I know they owe me it, but nowhere does it explain the process. They are apparently supposed to advertise the compensation arrangements. In 3 years of holding a season ticket they have never written to me, never e-mailed me, and I've never seen a poster at a station.

If you can find this info on gwr.com then please let me know! And even better, if you see a poster, then please let me know! I suspect they don't exist..

I wouldn't want to hazard a guess which ticket type brings in more income..but I do know that if your journey is disrupted you can get compensation for your ticket. It has to be really really really bad for season tickets holders to obtain that benefit (and you'll be lucky to actually be able to claim it for a void day!)

You can't claim it fir a void day. What you can do us seek refund for the void day or extend your renewal by one (or more) void days declared during the validity of the current ticket.

If it's really, really bad you'll get up to 10% off when you renew.  I prefer the fairness of the delay repay set-up (especially the new 15 minute threshold) which I'm sure will come when the next franchise ids awarded, but the current charter discounts are better than nothing.   I certainly don't have either option for my bus commute, or access to any kind of performance data.

Strangely it isn't where I'd expect to find it. I'd expect to find it on the front page after the thousands of people and possibly tens of thousands of people it affected or at the very least under 'season ticket compensation' directly. And as t0m points out there's nothing about how to actually claim it and none of the mythical emails and posters promised.

As do I, I've discussed elsewhere my perceived unfairness of the discount on renewal where it is not applied if it applies to the less part of your route.
I had zero discount on 9th July and the calendar year to then had not felt especially rosy.

My Didcot - Paddington season ticket covers zones 1-6 and I travel to SE London including routes covered by Southern. In 2016, each time I was delayed due to a Southern strike - they compensated the day of travel for the entire season ticket. I also qualified for their rebate of 1/12th of my season ticket cost.

Despite that only being 16 minutes of my journey I've had an unbelievable level of compensation from Southern (I actually think it is too generous..) and not a penny from GWR for the whole of 2016.

aaah, is your ticket priced by Southern? that'll be why

I'm guessing its a Didcot to London all zones travelcard purchased from a Southern Station. I can't see how else Southern would pay up. Aren't you only able to claim from the company you bought the ticket from?

So I see the latest figures are only just above the trigger for bristol. Do you only get the discount if the actual 12 month average result is below the trigger at the exact time of renewal?

Say it drops below for the next 6 months but rises just enough before my renewal date in April to get over the trigger, I get nothing?

I think so, yes.

Correct, coz, on average over the full length of your ticket, they weren't below target.

It was purchased from the Trainline - i.e. not from any one TOC or station, and no Southern station is named on it. Does that make a difference?

So it's just a season from 'a GWR station' to Zones 1-6?

ie a Travelcard season?

Yes

I wouldn't shout about getting Southern compensation then as I don't think you're actually entitled to it.

They have copies of my season ticket and have paid out consistently with no question. Seems reasonable to me, given my journey involves their services. Is there any formal documentation that explains the arrangements if a season ticket covers multiple operators?

Why not? The Season covers Zones 1-6. Southern provide services in those zones. So, if it's their services that cause delays to journeys, it is they that are responsible for paying compensation.

Well open to fraud this, and I can eventually see it being stopped. I find this interesting, and thanks for the enlightenment.

I find it hard to believe that there aren't many pax out there putting in claims for delays they never experienced....

So, you're saying that someone with a zonal ticket shouldn't be allowed to claim compensation for a delay because others may commit fraud?

Almost all ticket types (Advance Purchase excepted) can be submitted for a fraudulent claim. If the ticket hasn't been head code stamped there's no way for the TOC to know which service it was used on.

Prohibiting legitimate claims because a very small minority commit fraud isn't the answer.

I would agree with that - however, I can't help noting that modern society puts a huge burden on the majority who are going about their normal day to day lives because of a minuscule minority who would abuse the system.

* Think of all that airport security against - well - what proportion of travellers would be attempted terrorists?

* Think about how reluctant "you" are to offer people you don't know a lift in your car (assumption being made there) because of a tiny minority who would [insert nasty action] when travelling with you.

The RDG (Rail Delivery Group) are now publishing performance figures that record 'to the minute' figures alongside the Public Performance Measure figures that have been published for many years.  Importantly these figures now include station stops en-route, rather than just the terminal stations, at the 80% of stations where that data can be recorded.  They pledge to increase the 80% which will be achieved slowly through existing signalling schemes (such as the one between Preston and Blackpool and the North Wales coast), and I suppose GPS technology or the GSM-R radio system could also be adapted to be used for such a purpose?

https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/metrics

According to the blurb this will give the most transparent performance figures in Europe.  Along with various other tools on the web, such as www.realtimetrains.co.uk and www.mytrainjourney.co.uk it really is a fantastic amount of information that is now available.

A slight typo in your second link II  :)

Now resolved, with my apologies for the delay in dealing with this issue. CfN. :-[

A much better month for HSS punctuality at 90.3%, and an OK month for LTV at 83%.  The LTV figure much less than this time last year though, so again the MAA drops, this time to 82.2%.  The HSS MAA rose by 0.1% to 86.7%.

A better, but still disappointing figure for the Bristol services saw its MAA drop to 89.3%, which is now just 0.3% above the trigger level.  However a run of quite poor results this time last year means it is probably unlikely to hit the trigger point for a few months, though it needs figures in the 90s to be sure of that.

Reliability (trains ran) for LTV dropped to 97.4% as a result of the often trotted out 'more than usual trains needing repair' and 'shortage of train crew' dropping the MAA 0.1% from 98.8% to 98.7%.  Dicount trigger is 98%, so still some way to go.

The South Wales-South Coast sector's reliability was a very poor 97.4% which means the trigger discount of 98.5% is perilously close to being breached as it currently stands at 98.6%.  Not sure how many season ticket flows would qualify for a discount on that sector though?

Latest graph attached.

I feel we're getting complacent - to describe nearly 1 in 5 trains that are late (83%) in a period as 'OK' isn't right, sorry. It's poor to appalling frankly

I agree, it was only 'OK' in a comparative sense with the figures over the last year or so.

When exactly are the "more trains than usual needing repair" going to have been repaired? this "unusual" scenario has been going on for months now.

(and I agree with Chris B - one in five trains late is anything but "OK", relatively or otherwise)

All the stock being let go has had maintenance regime cut back. Now they stay longer, a catch up is needed. Of course, this hasn't been planned in advance, thus takes longer than if planned in advance

Which and how much stock is being "let go"? ........I know some of the Turbos are being moved around, but that's not the same thing.

With regard to the eastern end of the network, the four remaining 180s go by December, and HST sets start disappearing steadily from late this year I think.  GWR has no say in those dates (other than hopeful begging to whom they are destined to go) as the lease arrangements expire.  To replace them there are the new IET 800s due from this October, and the new Class 387 fleet can be much better utilised when full Didcot to Paddington usage is introduced with them in January - 45 4-car sets is the final order, and there are already around 30 delivered, but several are spare as the wires only currently go as far as Maidenhead and the driver training programme continues.

Turbos then move to the western end of the network, and they along with the short formation HST's we have been discussing (which fill the gap in the number of Turbos that can now be moved owing to electrification delays/cutbacks) allow GWR to release six single carriage Class 153s which are going to London Midland, and eight 2-car Class 143 pacers which will be almost certainly heading to the scrap heap (at last!).

I would expect the rolling stock situation to be significantly improved upon in January, but can't see much improvement until then.

Thanks very much for that detailed response II - looking at the state of the service between London and the Westcountry today, improvement can't come soon enough.

   Certainly from Totnes today,  5 cancellations today for London.
   
   One no train manager, but 4 due to train faults. Might give the train a miss for a few months.

Lots of data to chew over this month given the large number of cancellations we've been witnessing and discussing at some length on other threads.

Firstly, my usual HSS and LTV performance summary graph is attached and just judging by that you might think all is well.  HSS posted a respectable figure of 89.1% which lifted the MAA by 0.5% to 87.2%.  LTV's figure was 84.9% which again lifted the MAA, this time by 0.3% to 82.5%.  It goes without saying that the MAA rose so well as this time last year results were unseasonably poor.  Another poor month for the Bristol region saw figures of 84.9%, dropping the MAA 0.2% to 89.1%, which is now just 0.1% above the trigger level.

Turning to reliability, which is the current hot topic of course, and the following figures were posted by the various sectors:  HSS 98.9%, LTV 97.9%, Bristol 98.6%, Devon 99.3%, Plymouth & Cornwall 99.3%, and South Wales to South Coast 98.3%.  Whilst most of those are worse than normal it has yet to become bad enough to threaten the charter discount thresholds, except in the case of South Wales to South Coast which is now bang on the trigger mark of 98.5%.  LTV's figure of 97.9% is only 0.1% below the trigger level so it will have to get quite a bit worse to reach that level for the MAA which is currently 0.7% above that trigger level.  Recent removal of driver incentives for overtime (and other factors) might well make it get quite a lot worse though.  It will be very interesting to see next months figures.

It's worth reminding ourselves of the small print relating to punctuality and reliability statistics in GWR's passengers' charter:


That might explain why those of us who have been heavily inconvenienced recently whilst trying to travel on local services in the Bristol/Westbury areas on Sundays might have difficulty recognising the reported performance levels as representative of our own experience. And as IndustryInsider suggests, we might expect next month's figures to deteriorate further.

Yes indeed, BandHcommuter.  I've also been logging data for 'all-day right time' and 'all-day PPM' for the last five months which also covers the weekend trains and intend to produce a graph when I hit six months worth of data next period when the data will look meaningful.

Thank you for all of your work in compiling, interpreting and publishing these figures here, IndustryInsider.  ;)

The latest results are in...

Following a steady slump in punctuality over the last six months, the 'Bristol' sector has now breached its charter target for the Moving Annual Average (MAA) and so will trigger 5% season ticket renewal discounts.  Elsewhere, GWR certainly won't be winning any awards as MAA's stayed pretty much level, although the South Wales to South Coast is 3% points lower than this time last year and only needs to drop 1% for discounts to apply there too.

Reliability wise, another month of high cancellation rates led to low figures of 98% and 98.7% being recorded for LTV and HSS respectively.  Though with trigger levels of 98% and 98.2% there will need to be several months of this sort of performance for the charter figure to be threatened.  South Wales to South Coast did drop below the magic trigger level having hovered close to it for a couple of months, so that's 5% of renewals until it improves!

From the situation a year ago, where only one trigger level was being breached (LTV performance), there are now three more - HSS performance, Bristol performance, and South Wales to South Coast reliability.

The usual graph for HSS and LTV is attached.  Following comments about the usefulness of the data on that graph, I've also included another graph which has the data for all-day figures, not just the peaks, and covers 'Right Time' and 'Public Performance Measure (PPM)' data for GWR overall, and the three main sectors - HSS, LTV and West.  The GWR MAA figure is also represented.  Looks a bit cluttered, but the figures are there for all to see - for example in mid-summer, if you caught a HSS train, there was less than a third of a chance it would arrive on time!

Thanks, yet again, for that very informed detail, IndustryInsider.  ;)

I get notifications via text of short formations or cancellations for key times in the morning and evening on my route (still quite a short period of time) and it is more unusual to get a day that I don't get a warning vs everything working fine with no text!

With the new stock finally arriving perhaps things will slowly improve. I bet just as my renewal in April comes up we will sneak back over the trigger %.

ChrisB helpfully previously confirmed you don't get anything in this situation.


Which is fine when viewed in isolation but this is a renewal for a ticket I had purchased for several years. So if someone else happened to have their renewal this November they would get the discount but come April, if the 12 month rolling average improves then I won't get anything. Despite having exactly the same delays, just spread over 2 tickets rather than one. Them are the rules they set though....

Hoping for 15 min delay repay in the next franchise.

They are indeed the current rules, and they are unfair in certain instances.  I would be very surprised if delay repay 15 doesn't feature in the next franchise.

Can't help but feel the discounts should be based on the "all day" numbers. This year in a completely non scientific way seems to have been one of the poorer one in my 20 years of commuting form Twyford.

But they would dilute (big time) the stats if based as is at the moment, possibly that regular late running in the peaks of say, 20mins, combined with few off-peak delays, wouldn't drop the stats enough to ever get your 5%.

Bear in mind that the calculation is for the benefit of seasons, generally used in the peaks

Latest graphs attached, and a pretty unremarkable month worth of data showing on them as similar stats were achieved to last year.  Certain specific sectors continue to struggle though with regard to Passengers Charter performance.  Two more very bad months for the Bristol and South Wales/South Coast sectors saw their charter performance MAA drop to 88.1% and 89.4% respectively.  Bristol had already dropped into discount territory last month, and South Wales/South Coast now only needs to drop a further half percent to join it.

Reliabilty wise, Bristol Suburban's figure of 97% has now dropped its MAA to just 98.8%, which is just 0.3% above the trigger level.  Another bad month and that could mean a 10% renewal discount for those renewing over the New Year, which of course is quite a lot of people.

Usual graphs are attached...

Hi. Thanks for posting these charts - GWR don't seem too willing to post the history of the HSS season ticket PPMs (which seem to be higher than the HSS PPM data - this i understand is a function of season ticket renewals being based off peak arrivals and departures to Paddington only?)

Do you have the underlying data/numbers for the monthly HSS PPMs (with the most recently figure being 83.2 for the 4 weeks from October 15th 2017)?

I'm trying to work out what figure GWR need to hit/magic up in December to take the HSS PPM above the 88.0 target! It must have to be near or higher than the highest 4-week PPM figure they've managed through the whole of 2017 (and the past couple of weeks have been pretty disrupted)

Thank you

Hi, harrybruno and welcome to the forum.

The grey line on the HSS Punctuality graph is the monthly Peak PPM that season tickets are based on.  As you say, the most recent figure is 83.2%.  Regarding next month, the equivalent month last last year was 81.2%, which although poor, I reckon this month would have to be pretty flawless in order for the 88% target to be met.  And of course it won't be, so I will eat my hat if that target is reached next month.

I've attached the actual figures for each month from the start of 2016.

Great, thanks very much. Much appreciated.
Well if we assume a simple average and weight each period equally (though, for instance, were there a lower number of HSS running during the Swindon-Parkway electrification closure, which was a >88 period, in which case equally weighting may not be accurate), though 81.2 period drops out, i calculate that next month needs to be in excess of 91.5 to push the MMA to >87.95

I'll help you eat that hat! Thanks again

For the first time ever I might get a discount on my season ticket renewal... Compensation at last!

Now bring on DelayRepay...

Is there any idea how close to a 10% discount trigger :) we are on the London Thames Valley routes?

Renewal time comes shortly.  :(

Are there a new set of stats due before 01/01/2018?

The attached?

Looks as though you're 0.3% out on your 10% if renewing before the price rise then.

Is that not 0.3% in my favour? LTV looks below target on both counts.

That's my interpretation too. 
"If we fell below the trigger percentage in the last 12 months, we’ll give you 5% off your next season ticket. If we miss both the punctuality and the reliability targets, and fall below both triggers, we’ll give you 10%"

LTV are currently missing punctuality by a country mile and reliability by 0.3%.  Awesome.

Oops - hang on - this is the difference between Target and Trigger.  LTV and HSS are below the Target but haven't broken the Trigger levels.
Also, the Reliability ACTUAL for HSS above is 98.1% whereas GWR record this as 99.1% - above the Trigger.

So everything is fine for GWR and its only their regular 5% discount offered (plus 2 void days).  Lying cheats.  :-[

The triggers are on the 12 month moving average I believe. So wales gets a 5pc discount for reliability. LTV is significantly above trigger at 98.5pc. Also can't work out whether it's better to take 2 extra days on the next ticket or just take the cash...

At the rate this is going in the next 3-4 years I will end up paying the higher season ticket price...

Any season tickets discounts are based on a 12 month average.  It would have taken an awful month for LTV to fall below the reliability trigger and mean a 10% discount.

I’ll get round to my usual monthly analysis as soon as I have time.

A poor month for reliability and punctuality as cancellations continued to plague most routes.  The two sets in danger last month (Bristol Suburban reliability, and South Wales to South Coast punctuality) just managed to keep above their trigger discount levels (by 0.2% and 0.1% respectively) so there's no 10% renewal discounts for the large percentage of season ticket holders that renew over the new year.

5% discounts are to be given to the following:

High Speed services - punctuality 0.8% below trigger
London-Thames Valley services - punctuality 6% below trigger
Bristol Suburban - punctuality 1.1% below trigger
Plymouth & Cornwall - punctuality 1.1% below trigger
South Wales to South Coast - reliability 0.3% below trigger

Latest punctuality graphs are attached, which actually see rises in the MAA figures in many cases, due to being better than the corresponding month last year.  LTV Punctuality was a massive 7% better than this time last year!

Latest period results are in, and again make sober reading for GWR.

Bristol Suburban reliability hit the trigger point, and is already triggering punctuality, so that's 10% off season renewals.  The other one teetering on the edge last month was Wales to South Coast punctuality and that also is now triggering, so a 5% discount.

The punctuality for HSS and LTV was very poor again, HSS Peak PPM dropped below 80% to 79.5% and LTV recorded a pitiful 65.8% - not surprisingly that dragged the Moving Annual Average (MAA) down too.  See the graphs attached for an indication of how comparatively bad that was.  I've had to alter the axis of the LTV graph so that 65.8% is showing!

All-day Right Time and PPM figures were also very low, with less than 30% of HSS trains arriving at their destination on time as the crisis deepens within GWR.

I don't use the word 'crisis' lightly, and to see just how things have gotten worse, check out the last of the three graphs, which shows the MAA figures at the end of the year (so in effect, an annual performance average) of the Charter PPM figures for each of the sectors.  Aside from Plymouth & Cornwall, all sectors took a tumble, HSS by -1.6%, LTV -2.8%, Bristol -3.7%, Devon -1.2%, and Wales to South Coast -3.6%.

GWR needs to get its act together.  And fast!

Oh dear oh dear..and based on my experience of commuting on HSS, they have had a very poor start to the year too!

Excuse my ignorance, but where does this cover?
Is this between Weston and Temple Meads?

Good question, Phantom.

I believe ‘Bristol Suburban’ covers services over the following routes:

Bristol to Avonmouth/Severn Beach
Weston SM to Bristol TM/Bristol Parkway
Cardiff to Taunton
Weymouth/Brighton/Westbury via Bristol to Gloucester/Worcester/Malvern

Happy to be corrected on that score though.

There is certainly inconsistencies over what is what though - if you have a season from Bath Spa to Bristol you could travel on services that come under Bristol Suburban, HSS or Wales to South Coast, so if anybody could clarify what happens in those circumstances it’d good to know.

Similarly what happens if you had a Chippenham to Avonmouth season ticket?

Well at least if it carries on until the beginning of April I will get a 10% discount. I assume they need a few stellar performing months to drag the average up (not just average performamce).

Results for up to 3rd Feb have now been released.  Better than the previous month, though still very poor and all the Moving Annual Averages for both Reliability and Punctuality either dropped or remained static.  The LTV Reliability MAA has now dipped to 92.2%, which is just 0.2% above the trigger level, so 10% season ticket renewals are a distinct possibility in a few months if the slide continues.

Data for the Cotswold Line, which as we've been discussing has been hit very hard of late, shows a combined cancellation/part cancellation rate of 17.7% and 12.6% for the last two months respectively.  Typically the MAA for the route hovers around the 6% mark for both categories, so that indicates just how bad the route has been hit since the end of last year.

Latest graphs are attached.

Latest result covering up to 3rd March have been published.  No surprises to see that performance continues to be very poor pretty much across the board, with only the Devon and Cornwall sectors not sliding downhill quicker than the skiers at the Winter Olympics.

LTV reliability was 97.1% which dragged the MAA down to just 0.1% off the trigger mark of 97.0% which may well mean 10% season ticket discounts will be given for renewals after the next period as the punctuality metric is way below target.

Cotswold Line watch: Grim reading.  The third successive month with a 'Right Time Arrival' figure of less than 30%.  The figures for cancellations and part cancellations are missing from the published data for some reason - an error/ oversight I'm sure rather than deliberately removed, but we know how poor it's been!  I'll report back when that has been corrected.

Usual graphs attached...

So just to confirm, this looks like I get my 10% discount for Bristol based season ticket when I renew in 2 weeks time.

As long as it comes under Bristol Suburban (and not HSS) then yes.

Yatton-Bristol so I think so.

No surprises that performance and reliability were once again very poor in the latest set of results released, which cover to the 31st March.

LTV Reliability, as forecast last month, has dragged the MAA down to the trigger value of 98%, so by reckoning it will be a 10% discount for season renewals that come under that sector.  HSS reliability is now the one to watch as a terrible result of 96.4% dragged the MAA down to 98.4% which is only 0.2% above the trigger level.

Elsewhere it's just a case of the continued poor performance of recent months, which given a generally strong performance for April this time last month means I expect those MAA's to continue to fall when the next set of figures is released.

Usual graphs attached...

Bear in mind that this period covers the snow events too

although some of those were taken as void days..meaning they don't make it into the performance stats, right?

Right....

Does any one have the data for HSS Reliability for the first two 4-week periods of 2018 (covering January & Feb)? I don't have a record. It looks like HSS Reliability discounts will be due for much of the rest of 2018 at this rate.
Thanks all

Official data for last 4 week period for services westward from .. two .. capitals

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/perf_may2018.jpg)

At miost, oner train an hour on the routes out of Heuston - no real comparison ought to be made frankly

I have the third period - 4th to 31st March, and the whole year's averages April '17 to March '18 inclusive.  Any use?

Interesting thought. You're suggesting that figures to an Irish reliability standard should be achieved on lines such as Gunnislake, Melksham and Newquay where service are less frequent far less frequent services?

Houston had services to Waterford, Cork/Tralee and Galway/Ballina/Westport - plus locals to Portlaoise etc. - all sharing the main line out to for quite a long way.

Those HSS/LTV figures are absolutely shocking.

If they all started from Pad, like those referenced started from DUB, yes. ie, many many more run out out of PAD in any hour than do out of Heuston.....

Thanks, i have those. My guess is the period prior to that at the beginning of 2018 was little better!

Two months of figures to add to my usual graphs, and as expected the general performance dive-bomb continues over pretty much all sectors with only the Plymouth & Cornwall sector able to hold its head up high, although even there you can see signs of a slight dip over the (admittedly excellent) figures from last year.

So, in terms of season renewals HSS reliability has now gone below the trigger mark, so with punctuality already well below it the maximum 10% season ticket renewal discounts are now applying as they are with the LTV, Bristol and Wales to South Coast sectors.

HSS and LTV have seen their punctuality MAA (Moving Annual Average) drop by over 2% in the last period, with Bristol scoring even worse and dropping 3%.

Looking forward to the addition of the latest figures to these charts..those numbers aren't getting much better!

Funnily enough I updated my spreadsheet earlier so should be able to publish them tomorrow.  Anyone really keen to see the data can always check the website of course.

It was July last year that the bottom fell out of the performance (at least on the TransWilts) - and the sharp rise in post numbers here, July 2017 over June 2017 suggests to me that wast't just a local problem we were talking about.    So from next month onwards, a moving annual average which replaces last year's figure for a month with the new figure for this year will tend to move to a flat line, but at a lower level that it used to be.

If MAA is used to define "usual", do reasons for delay that contain the word "usual" may have less validity from now on?

Latest graphs attached...

Results from last period were generally a little up on the previous couple of months, the notable exception being Devon punctuality which has been over 90% every period since the beginning of 2016, but for some reason plummeted to 86.4%.

Another eye opening statistic is the HSS 'Right time' figure dipping below 25% - although those results are a month behind the charter ones.



The general West area started to struggle big time last July, but HSS and LTV were a little late to the party - HSS around October, and LTV at the turn of the year, (though results before were hardly spectacular) so both of those could still have some way to fall.  Part of the reason for starting this thread was so results could be monitored over several years, so that claims of 'good news' of a Moving Annual Average rising wasn't masked by the fact that it is still 5% worse than it was two years ago.  Not that there's any imminent sign of any MAA's rising much!

Thanks for posting the latest update II.  I was looking at the claim made by NR a few days ago that the RT MAA for the whole UK network had doubled upwards since it took over in 2002.  However, if you look at the chart they published (can't seem to find it again at the moment), the RT MAA started at an all time low post Hatfield so it was bound to go up (I would hope).  In fact the chart shows that the RT MAA has been falling since 2008 so things are getting worse, not better (oh well, I suppose you can always explain away the figures to make them look good).

So, it would be interesting to see the effect of the dismal NR performance on the GWR performance, but I suppose there aren't any charts that show that......

Edit to add: Found the NR info again https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/how-we-work/performance/public-performance-measure/

Four more graphs attached as though I don't want to make this thread to data intense, it's only right given the discussion about Moving Annual Averages in other sectors that I display the same graphs for them using data since the beginning of 2016.

The collapse of the 'Bristol' area figures surprised me looking at it in graph format, and 'South Wales to South Coast' also paints a sobering picture.  Only 'Devon' and the fantastic results from 'Plymouth/Cornwall' make easy reading for the GWR management team!


They're probably buried somewhere, but very difficult to find.  Historically the delay totals have been attributed roughly 66% to NR and 33% to the TOC, but it would be interesting to see if that is slowly changing in either direction?

I've edited my post above as I found the NR chart again. ::) :P

As someone who travels in the "Bristol" area a fair bit (mainly the local stopping services between Bath and Bristol, and the Severn Beach line) I am not surprised at all, if anything I am glad my general feelings from the last 6 or so months aren't totally just in my head! (obviously not glad the situation is as poor as it is, but glad my general feelings are backed up with real data).

So are the HSS figures worthy of a 10% discount come my renewal later this week?

Yes they are.  Punctuality is 82.8% with a 5% discount trigger of 88%, and Reliability is 98% with a 5% discount trigger of 98.2%

Some of that data can be found here http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/statistical-releases (http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/published-stats/statistical-releases) and the figures for GWR are 63% NR, 25% GWR and 11.8 other TOC's, although these are for 2016/2017. I am sure I have seen newer quarterly figures that showed a massive increase in in the GWR figures.

A lot of data can be found here http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/browsereports/3 (http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/browsereports/3), but as an example, number of trains cancelled in May 2018 2054, in May 2017 716, the worst recent month is Feb 2018 with 3,423 and as far as I can tell that is the highest ever figure for GWR. Note that these aren't exact months as there are 13 x 4 week reporting periods a year.

Thanks for those links.  Page 18 here makes interesting reading...…
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/27759/passenger-freight-performance-2017-18-q4.pdf



Apologies to II for hijacking his thread ;)

Not so much hijacking - more "amplifying".   :)

New set of annual figures have been released today by TOC.

In the category for delay there is a significant increase in delays attributes to 'operations. What does this include? It can't include the train crew shortage as surely this is covered by train crew

Here is the link for those interested  - http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/28190/great-western-railway-factsheet-1718.pdf

So, a 50% increase in self-inflicted delays.  Caused by the multitude of reasons we've been discussing and getting frustrated about over the last year or so.

Interesting that the number of complaints being answered within the 20 day time period has gone up. Is that GWR accepting the fact that the service has gone up in smoke?

Also does anyone have a narrative for what each category of delay entails? Would love to know what falls in to operations?

Simply got the staffing numbers right at last, I reckon.

The number of appeals to Transport Focus appear to have dropped at last too.

Here's the latest official stats from GWR as they continue to plod along slowly getting worse in terms of punctuality and cancellations with all MAA categories falling across the whole franchise with the exception of Devon reliability which stayed the same.

Of special note was the appalling 74.4% punctuality recorded on the South Wales/South Coast charter group, which caused the MAA to drop by a whole percent and is 20% below what were excellent figures being typically achieved a couple of years ago.  Bristol punctuality was also very poor at just 67% again well below the results in the 90% mark regularly being achieved just over a year ago.

In terms of charter discounts, Plymouth/Cornwall reliability, which has dropped 0.5% since the turn of the year in terms of the MAA, only needs to drop a further 0.2% to trigger 5% season ticket renewals.

Usual graphs attached...

Thanks for your update again, II.  I have liked your post above not because of its content, but to thank you for continuing to post the figures here for all to see.  Otherwise, appalling service from GWR (again), and it looks as if its still heading downhill as we speak.... ::)

But the gravy train still runs to time.. :(

To be honest with you is it GWR that's getting worse or is it the direct result of the idiotic IEP program managed by the government? GWR are having to rush training to ensure these expensive trains get used asap and lots of rolling stock leaving when it is really needed because of the screw up in the electrification, meaning not enough stock to cover defects with trains?

Not sayings its not GWR's fault, but a lot is out of their hands. I personally think if more 9 car iet's had been ordered and only a few 5 cars had been ordered instead a lot of the problems wouldn't be happening.

I suspect the drop in reliability on the Portsmouth/Cardiff group has a lot to do with the IET programme.  Westbury depot has 52 drivers who have all needed training on the newly cascaded turbos.  The basic training has been completed but some still need to go through training on coupling units.  Other depots have had similar issues.

There has also been an issue with certain turbos not allowed through the Severn Tunnel (sometimes at short notice) which has meant part cancellations if no other stock can be found.  If one of the internal doors between the carriages is faulty it is not allowed through the tunnel.   GWR tried to get a derogation but were denied.  When the units ran in the Thames Valley it wasn't so much of a problem and getting parts to repair them has proved difficult.

I largely agree.
However I do not mind blaming GWR at least to an extent. They kept advertising the wonderful new trains and implying that THEY  were funding these improvements. So now it has gone wrong, they should take SOME of the blame.

And yes the new trains should have been mainly full length with a minority of short units.

Technically the did, they've been paying the government for the franchise since 1996, that money is probably enough to go at least 50/50 with the government, if not paying for all these improvements in full maybe more. Although the famous five campaign is horrible, bring back the Great Westerner's campaign is all i can say, I know Prince Charles was a fan of it.

Here are the latest graphs.  Two months for the price of one as I was a bit slow adding the stats from two months ago.

Encouraging signs?  The figures from three periods ago perhaps saw a bottoming out of performance and reliability as both subsequent periods generally saw improving figures - much improved in some cases at around 10% better.  Before we start to cheer too loudly though, these figures are still generally below where they were this time last year, so, as you can see, the Moving Annual Average continued its downward trend in all metrics over those two periods.  Real problems began in the November period last year, so I would expect the MAA's to drop further next time around, but then stabilise and hopefully start to rise again.

A very well needed and noticed HSS change.

Thank you for producing these graphs. Really interesting.

It's now been 2 1/2 years since LTV monthly performance hit its target. Is this the longest period for a suburban commuting service?

Even if improvements continue, it's clearly going to be a further significant period before the target will be hit.

Thanks, Nick.  With nearly three years of data now, you can really pick out the trends over time, downwards mostly!  I should have started it back in 2007 when it went wrong badly last time!

I've corrected the attachments on the previous post which had two graphs the same, and no graph showing Plymouth/Cornwall and South Wales to South Coast services.

Latest punctuality graphs attached.

Another uninspriring month, seeing most Moving Annual Averages (MAA's) fall - though as mentioned last time, they will probably start to stabilise now as it was around a year ago when the figures first started to plummet.  Next charter discount trigger in danger is Devon & Cornwall Reliability which is at 98.6%, just 0.1% above the 5% trigger level.

A couple of further interesting stats buried in the published performance data not covered by the attached graphs:

1) For the period up to 15th September, the North Downs was the worst performing route on GWR with just 17.76% of trains arriving at or before the published time.  Next worst was West of England at 22.12%.
2) The percentage of services shortformed for the same period is listed as 17.85% for HSS, 7.63% for LTV, and 13.92% for the West.

That's all until next month!

Many, many thanks for keeping those graphs up to date and (in advance) for continuing to do so into the future - THANK YOU.

Picking up on stabilisation.  Forum posts numbers seem to correlate with service problems ... and from January to August the year we saw a significant growth.   September levelled out 2017 to 2018 (1487, 2499 and 2346 posts in 2016, 2017 and 2018) and October - 2111 posts last year, just 1740 the year before - looks like it's headed for a similar number to 2017.

I will be happy to see us struggle to make 2,000 - even with some of the plans we have for the forum. For that struggle would mean that the train service being provided was generally regarded as being fit for purpose.

Edit to correct typo - which autocorrect had corrected in the wrong way!!

Yes, it's interesting, but perhaps not entirely unexpected, to see more posts when more things are going wrong.  Other factors, such as an influx of new/cascaded trains, will also boost the number of posts above where they would be if the status quo remained.

Absolutely shocking performance on virtually all levels

Yes indeed.  The only figure amongst the published stats that might be considered 'good', alongside the always impressive Plymouth/Cornwall punctuality, is the HSS Reliability (which I don't show in my data) which at 99% was quite comfortably the best of the year so far.  Still 0.2% below GWR's own target though.

I've posted before about the dismal performance figures of GWR.  Here is the data for Plymouth to Paddington journeys over the past 30 days....


TOC Scheduled Times               % Arrivals       Actual Arrival
        d PLY   a PAD   Dur           On Time       Average
GW   04:51   08:37   3h 46m   0%                   08:53 16L
GW   04:51   08:58   4h 7m   0%                   09:06 8½L
GW   05:29   09:23   3h 54m   14%                   09:37 14½L
GW   05:29   09:25   3h 56m   100%           09:25 RT
GW   05:29   10:14   4h 45m   0%                   10:21 7L
GW   05:53   09:00   3h 7m   0%                   09:28 28L
GW   05:53   10:01   4h 8m   0%                   10:05 4L
GW   06:53   10:02   3h 9m   0%                   10:30 28L
GW   06:53   10:39   3h 46m   75%                   10:39 RT
GW   07:45   11:21   3h 36m   0%                   11:48 27½L
GW   07:45   11:42   3h 57m   50%                   11:43 1L
GW   08:51   12:21   3h 30m   6%                   12:44 23L
GW   08:51   13:03   4h 12m   75%                   13:03 ½L
GW   09:49   13:15   3h 26m   6%                   13:28 13L
GW   09:49   13:37   3h 48m   0%                   13:57 20½L
GW   11:00   14:01   3h 1m   25%                   14:12 11½L
GW   11:00   14:45   3h 45m   50%                   14:46 1L
GW   12:01   15:21   3h 20m   6%                   15:38 17L
GW   12:01   15:43   3h 42m   0%                   15:47 4½L
GW   12:55   16:21   3h 26m   40%                   16:28 7½L
GW   12:55   16:40   3h 45m   25%                   16:45 5L
GW   13:56   17:15   3h 19m   18%                   17:26 11L
GW   13:56   17:19   3h 23m   40%                   17:26 7L
GW   13:56   17:44   3h 48m   67%                   17:45 1½L
GW   13:56   17:46   3h 50m   0%                   17:48 2L
GW   15:00   18:16   3h 16m   0%                   18:34 18L
GW   15:00   18:18   3h 18m   0%                   18:25 7L
GW   15:00   18:55   3h 55m   0%                   19:09 14½L
GW   16:00   19:20   3h 20m   13%                   19:33 13L
GW   16:00   19:45   3h 45m   0%                   19:56 11½L
GW   16:57   20:37   3h 40m   0%                   20:57 20L
GW   16:57   20:50   3h 53m   0%                   20:53 3½L
GW   18:03   21:22   3h 19m   0%                   21:59 37L
GW   18:03   21:46   3h 43m   0%                   23:02 76L
GW   19:44   23:39   3h 55m   67%                   00:44 65L
GW   19:44   23:41   3h 57m   0%                   23:46 5L
GW   19:44   23:42   3h 58m   33%                   00:09 27½L
GW   23:54   *05:03   5h 9m   0%                   05:17 14L
GW   23:54   *05:04   5h 10m   50%                   05:09 5½L
GW   23:54   *05:06   5h 12m   100%           05:06 RT
GW   23:54   *05:07   5h 13m   50%                   05:22 15½L

Data courtesy of Real Time Trains

Another month of figures to chart.   :)

And another pretty bog standard set of figures recorded.   :(

Main news is that the Plymouth/Cornwall 'reliability' score was only 97.7% which was enough for the Moving Annual Average (MAA) to drop 0.1% down to the season ticket discount trigger of 98.5, so anyone renewing their season tickets should get 5% off.  That means 9 out of the 12 performance metrics are at or below the discount trigger, with only those in the Devon group currently not offering some kind of discount.  Even there 'punctuality' has been dropping like a stone so might well be triggering in a few months!

Elsewhere, a mixed picture.  HSS saw its punctuality MAA drop below 80%, a whole 10% lower than what was being recorded two and a half years ago.  On the flip side, Bristol punctuality recorded the best figure for nine months, continuing a general upward trend over the last few months.  It will be interesting to see if the F4T enhancements have any tangible effect on those figures over the coming months.

Usual charts are attached:

A little delayed (oh, the irony!), but here are the figures covering up to 8th December, the last of the three 'leaf fall' affected periods.

Nothing to write home about, but at least one of the charter sectors managed to drag itself out of the 5% discount trigger, though it had only been triggering since the previous period anyway.  That is the Plymouth/Cornwall sector.  A very mixed bag elsewhere - LTV recorded the worst punctuality since I started recording the stats at the end of 2015 with just 65.7%, dragging the MAA down to 73.9%, over 11% lower than it was two years ago.  HSS had the best month reliability wise in at least a year at 99.2%.

Graphs attached...

Not sure if this is the right place, but does it mean that people are getting a 5 % discount on renewal of a season tickets.

For all services except Devon, Plymouth and Cornwall the current discount is 10%; 5% for Punctuality and 5% for reliability as both measures are below trigger.
Although annual season tickets on former Wessex Train (Bristol and South Wales/South Coast) services can get 16% discount.
More details can be found here https://www.gwr.com/help-and-support/refunds-and-compensation/season-ticket-compensation (https://www.gwr.com/help-and-support/refunds-and-compensation/season-ticket-compensation) and https://www.gwr.com/about-us/performance (https://www.gwr.com/about-us/performance)

Thanks Ray does that mean that people with continuous season tickets are actually paying less year on year?

I remember a period at the end of Thanes Trains  and the changeover First ? taking over when for several years I paid lees each year for my annual season ticket around 2% rise and 5% discount.

Never seems to get mentioned in reporting.

A most welcome, and surprising, big boost to the figures for the last period covering up to 5th January!

Virtually all sectors saw much improved performance.  HSS Punctuality was the best recorded since September 2017, LTV Punctuality was the best since October 2017 and 15% higher than the last period.  Bristol's Punctuality was the best since May 2017, which was matched by South Wales to South Coast.

Reliability was also improved upon with HSS recording an exceptional 99.7%.  I haven't been logging reliability for as long, but that's comfortably the best over the previous year.  LTV's 99.3% was also the best and enough to lift the Reliability figure out of the charter discount trigger level, so only 5% renewal discounts will now apply.

The only 'bad' stat across the whole board was South Wales to South Coast's Reliability score of 95.4%, the third worst of the year.  Even the 'shortform' stats were encouraging with HSS at 6.33%, half the typical figure over the last twelve months.

This is a real boost, however I am fully aware it is only one months figures after a year of terrible ones, possibly distorted slightly with the Christmas and New Year alterations, but if these figures can be repeated then we will be largely back to where we were before the general crash and burn experienced from mid-2017 to late-2017 onwards.

Too see how bad it got over the last year punctuality wise especially, a fifth graph showing the end of year Punctuality MAA average over the past four years is attached, showing how all sectors, except Plymouth/Cornwall collapsed over the last twelve months.

I've certainly noticed the uptick in Bristol punctuality - the number of text delay warnings I get has gone down significantly.

I note several Paddington high speed services from Bristol towards Weston/Taunton have had there timetables tweaked and the train departure put back several minutes at Bristol. So while they now might meet punctuality, no time saving for the user...

Agree with that, and the improved performance seems to be continuing through January.

I keep a close eye on two Taunton - Cardiff services that I use most often for my journey home from work, and their arrival time in Newport because I make a connection there.  Statistics for arrival within 5 minutes of scheduled time look like this:
July 2018 - 14/34 = 41%
Aug 2018 - 27/45 = 60%
Sep 2018 - 27/44 = 61%
Oct 2018 - 23/39 = 59%
Nov 2018 - 13/20 = 65%
Dec 2018 - 29/31 = 91%
Jan 2019 up to today - 25/26 = 96%

No short-forms this week either on these services - though that's not long enough to call it a sustained trend.

Adrian

My ticket despite the 5% or 10% has nearly always cost me more. I wished I was better at maths to understand why.

Another mostly positive set of results after last months distinct upturn.  HSS Punctuality was up to 90.6% which is the best result since April 2016, and with Reliability at 99% I guess that's evidence that the IETs are starting to settle in?  All other punctuality scores were up on last month as well, except for LTV which dropped back a little. 

Reliability didn't show quite such an impressive set of results, with drops on 4 or the 6 sectors compared with last month, though they were mostly slight drops.  That's except for Plymouth & Cornwall which recorded just 97.6, no doubt due to the Penryn derailment.  That was enough to drop the Moving Annual Average from 98.7% to 98.5% which is the trigger for season ticket discounts.

Graphs attached.

Thanks. So why is LTV still performing poorly?

The 387s have been around for a year now on the outers (and longer on the suburban services).

Is it just the seemingly frequent infrastructure issues at the London end of the route? Issues with the timetable? Something else?

I could make a (probably ill-informed!) guess that the problem is timetable related, and a further observation.

If you look at that most complicated current GWR timetable,  T10, you will see a very complicated set of different calling patterns all running between Paddington and Reading, and an uneven spacing of services with "bunching". Many leave or arrive at the same station close together, so delay on one service affects others. To give two examples - there are 3 services close together through Goring each weekday morning towards Reading - a 7-45 (stopping electric to London), 7-55 (stopping diesel, Oxford-Reading) and 08-00 (electric limited stop after Reading for London). The first is often late, and almost invariably the others are delayed following. There are then gaps of 18 and 28 minutes respectively between the next two services. In the evening there are a number of limited stop departures that pass earlier slower trains before reaching Maidenhead, then stop there and Twyford just or so three minutes before the slow service they have overtaken, so it does not take much slippage in timings to get two late trains for the price of one. Perhaps (if it is possible) reworking the Paddington - Didcot timings so that timings west of Maidenhead are evened out might help?

The second factor is the splitting of trains at Reading - a particular problem with a train I often get when I change at Reading, the 16-57 ex-Reading stopping service for Didcot. It arrives as a lightly loaded 12 coach train, then divides. leaving 4 behind. It seldom arrives at the advertised 16-53, and usually takes longer (sometimes much longer) than the allowed 4 minutes to divide, often ending up 10 minutes or more late at Goring. Surely someone could work out a way of avoiding this delay?

 

Back down to 5% discount for Thames Valley. Seems a poor deal for the traveller considering how bad the service has been over the last year.

Yes, it was 10% for ten consecutive months, but reliability is now 0.1% above the trigger level for the last two periods.  The much fairer adoption of the Delay Repay method is just around the corner still we hope!

While generally my trains are running on time, I'm finding lots of the Taunton/Cardiff or Weston/Parkway services I catch are running short formed.

Not quite rammed but it is definitely standing room only on many of these where as previously they had a third unit.

While the engineering works are ongoing west of Exeter, some of the Cardiff - Taunton diagrams have been modified.  The very busy 0800 Cardiff to Paignton usually starts out from Exeter, but for the last 3 weeks that is has been a Bristol-based set it has apparently been planned as a 2-car 150 instead of the normal 3 carriages.  And that one is most definitely rammed between Newport and Bristol.  To make matters worse, that unit later forms the 1508 Taunton to Cardiff which passes through Filton Abbey Wood at 1632 and is again ram packed between there and Newport.  It's as if the train planners responsible for short-term changes to train diagrams don't make use of typical loading figures when allocating stock.

Since the start of the year, I think all the CDF - TAU diagrams that are not going to or coming from places further west are supposed to be 3-car (150/0 or 166).  The 2nd half of January and first half of February short forms seemed relatively scarce, but maybe it was premature to claim an improvement.  And without the 153s available to augment the 150/2s I don't suppose it's going to get much better until the rest of the cut-down HSTs arrive.

The latest graphs are attached covering the period up to 2nd March.  The upward spike in punctuality, and to a lesser extent, reliability, continued.

HSS posted the best set of punctuality figures for three years at 91.9%, well above the target levels.  LTV posted the best results since September '17.  Wales to the South Coast and Bristol's were the best since April '17.  Many of the MAA's rose quite considerably as a result, though all penalties still apply from the previous period and the Devon figure slipped back to 89.1%, only 0.1% above the 5% season ticket trigger.

Another good set of results last period, saw HSS consolodate on their recent improvements with a 93.0% Punctuality score, second best since then end of 2015 when I started keeping data, and a Reliability score of 99.7%.  That Reliability score was enough to take it out of the charter discount trigger with the MAA (Moving Annual Average) rising to 98.5%.  Just a 5% discount now applies.

Other sectors also recorded good results with LTV Punctuality at 85.6%, the best for over two years, and most other sectors improved or maintained the better results we've been seeing since late last year.  The only dip of note being Bristol Punctuality which at 89.0% was around 1.5% lower than the previous three months - that's still over 9% better than the same period last year so saw the MAA still rise healthily by 0.7%.

With details of the new timetable from December slowly emerging it will be very interesting to see how the sectors, HSS especially, perform in the run up to its introduction and the period after when much of the current slack due to the improved performance of the new trains is removed.

The figures for the month of April were again mostly on the up.  A good summary would be to say that the performance is now back at levels seen three years ago in early 2016.  Last month saw all punctuality metrics above 90% except for LTV which was at 88.2% but still a couple of percentage points higher than has been recorded in any period over the last two years.

Reliability figures were all above 99%, with HSS and Plymouth/Cornwall leading the way on 99.5%.  That was enough to raise the Plymouth/Cornwall MAA out of the charter trigger point for reliability, so relevant season ticket discounts will no longer apply.

The usual graphs are attached...

Highlight for the four weeks up to 25th May was undoubtedly the performance of the HSS sector.  Punctuality was recorded at 95%, well over 1% higher than I have recorded since I started logging at the end of 2015.  To put that into perspective, it is higher than any period in the last year that well respected operator Chiltern Railways has recorded.  However I should point out that Chiltern records to 5 minutes whereas HSS comes under the longer distance sector, so it's 10 minutes.  ;)  HSS reliability was also the highest I've logged at 99.8%.

LTV punctuality was also good at 89.3%, third highest since the end of 2015.  All other punctuality and reliability results roughly matched the general recent improvement, with the only notable drop being reliability of South Wales to South Coast at 98.5% which is half a percent lower than recent months.

Graphs attached...

Another pretty impressive set of stats covering up to 22nd June, albeit slight drops recorded on most metrics compared with the previous month.  Many of the Moving Annual Average figures are climbing steadily though and it won't be long before several of the season ticket discount thresholds go back into the black if the recent results continue.  There have been perceived signs of a poorer start to the current period though, so we'll see what next month brings.

The new financial year has led to a changing of reporting rules that we have discussed on the forum before, as TOCs are now required to publish results of punctuality showing the percentage of trains arriving at all station stops on their schedule (rather than just the final one) and to a variety of levels.  Namely whether they were early, on time, +3 mins, +5, +10, +20, +30 or cancelled.  When there is a sufficient number of periods where this has been published to produce a meaningful graph, I will include it.

Graphs attached...

A definite dip in performance last period, when compared with the several preceding months of much improved figures.

That didn't stop the MAA (Moving Annual Average's) continue their steady climb upwards, as, for the most part, the same period last year was much worse.  A 0.4% increase in the MAA for Bristol Reliability (not shown on the graphs below) saw it climb out of the season ticket discount trigger.  Several other MAA's are getting close to getting above the discount trigger, HSS punctuality amongst them, and will do so in the coming months if the general improved trend continues.

The warmest ever day fell just after this period, so results from that will be included in the next period's figures.

Usual graphs attached:

Punctuality held up reasonably well in the last period (covering up to 17th August) given the perception that it has been a difficult time for GWR.  HSS's recorded 'punctuality' figures of 90.7%, 14% higher than the same period in 2018 which led to the MAA (Moving Annual Average) jumping by over 1% to 88.3%, which is 0.3% above the season ticket discount trigger.  This means no season ticket discounts will be offered on renewal for the first time since early 2017.  Until March this year 10% discounts applied as 'reliability' was also triggering.

Speaking of reliability, and the period saw disappointing figures of between 97 and 99% for the different sectors.  Again though MAA's rose on the strength of the figures compared with the same period last year.

Elsewhere it was an 'OK' month, figures generally well up on this time last year, but nothing to crow about - 80.1 for LTV punctuality for example.

The recent change in reporting detail means a new graph!  It details the performance across the franchise for early arrivals, on time arrivals, arrivals within 3 minutes of the advertised time, within 15 minutes of the advertised time, and the cancellation rate.  The punctuality is measured at every station the train calls at rather than the final station for a much more accurate picture as artificial padding let to unrepresentative figures with the old method.  The statistics go back to April last year, although the MAA is only given from the start of this financial year.

Figures are also published for within 5 minutes, 10 minutes and over 15, 20 and 30 minutes, but I decided to try and keep the graph looking clean I would not include those figures.  They are available from the GWR website if you wish to see them: https://www.gwr.com/about-us/performance

This new graph, and the usual punctuality graphs are attached.

A general performance uplift after a couple of months where it had dropped back a little.  HSS Punctuality was 95%, equalling the high of the past few years recorded a few periods back.  Elsewhere all the punctuality MAA's moved upwards, but it was a much more mixed picture for reliability where the staff shortages we've discussed on the forum have caused less than impressive figures to be recorded.  LTV only recorded 97.5% reliability causing the MAA to be knocked back by 0.2%.  Plymouth/Cornwall managed only 98.3% which was just enough to drop the MAA to the trigger mark of 98.5% after five months of being just above the trigger level.

Usual graphs attached.

Latest figures up to 12th October on the usual graphs attached.

A pretty good month again.  HSS posting 94.9% punctuality and 99.8% reliability to match or nearly match the best in recent years.  The Wales to South Coast sector punctuality MAA went above the season ticket trigger level for the first time in almost two years, so only 5% season tickets will be offered on applicable flows there.  All other punctuality sectors also rose, with HSS climbing above the 'target' figure of 90% for the first time since the end of 2015 (it will actually be earlier than that, but I wasn't keeping records before then!).  Devon also climbed above the punctuality target for the first time since mid-2018.

The all stations punctuality metric hit a bit of a milestone for on time arrivals of 66.7%.

Usual graphs attached for the four-weekly period up to 9th November.

A pretty reasonable period for punctuality and an 'ok' one for reliability.  HSS punctuality MAA now at 91.3% continuing its march upwards by about 1% each period over the last few months to a figure well over 1% higher than the target and that I've recorded since taking note of the stats at the end of 2015.  A figure of 79% for the next period this time last year should see that MAA move upwards again, as will most of the others before the challenge of the new timetable arrives along with the anniversary of a general improvement from the torrid figures which hit most of 2017/18. 

Elsewhere the Plymouth/Cornwall reliability figure just climbed out of the season ticket trigger level after dropping into it a couple of months ago.  Three discounts are now triggering, LTV punctuality, Bristol punctuality, and Wales to South Coast reliability.  The latter two could come out of that trigger threshold in a period or two with reasonable results.

Period nine.  The final set of performance figures before the new timetable, and the main period where those pesky leaves affect the figures.

We're still waiting on the all-day-all-stations data to be published, but the Passenger's Charter results are in.  HSS once again the current golden child of the franchise, posting 91.5% punctuality (12.5% up on the same period last year) which sees the MAA rise by another percent to 92.3%.   It was the next period last year where results started to improve on the dire 2018 results, so (with the added pressures of the new timetable) that might well be as high as it gets!

Other sectors were less impressive, LTV recording 73.9%, the worst of the year by some margin, but still over 8% better than the truly dreadful figure from the same period last year, so the MAA rose to 82.9%.  All other sectors were also better than this time last year, with the exception of 'Wales to South Coast' which was 0.7% down at 83.3%

Reliability figures were steady but not spectacular.  The one major blip being the reliability on the 'Plymouth/Cornwall' sector which, following prolonged problems on the Looe and Newquay branches, dropped to just 95.9%.  Good news in a way for season ticket holders renewing in the next month as that dropped the Reliability MAA down to 98.3% and below the 5% discount trigger again.  It's moved above or below the trigger level no less that eight times over the last year and a half.

Graphs attached...

The 'missing' graph from the previous period now attached...

Figures now published which covered three weeks of the new timetable introduction.  Though of course that three weeks also covered Christmas and New Year with all the subsequent alterations, so it's difficult to read too much into the results.  The real picture of the new timetable will become clearer next period.

Overall, I think there were a lot of relieved people within GWR.  The viability of the new timetable predicted by many to be under question (though not too many on here to be fair) proved to be largely unfounded.  Some of the Superfasts were still running early, and most of the other accelerated services were still keeping to time with little bother.  That's not to say everything has been rosy as several 'problem trains' have arisen (discussed on here), IET coupling/uncoupling continues to cause problems.  There have still been shortforms and cancellations due to crew shortages - although in both cases it has been much less of an issue than many expected.

So, how was the introduction of the new timetable reflected in the performance statistics?  Well, you could argue either way, but we were told to expect a dip in performance and there was one.  Not as big a dip as some feared mind you.

Of the six different sectors, punctuality rose in four of them compared with the previous period.  The drops were in HSS and LTV though, arguably the 'big hitters' and most important.  HSS dropped to 84.5%, some 5-10% below what had been the general figure over the previous year.  However that was still 10% or so above what was being achieved in mid to late 2018.  LTV was at 71.7%, third worst since I started recording the stats in late 2015, so clearly some work to be done there - how much a few infrastructure issues were the cause of that will become clearer over the coming months.

Reliability was poor for HSS, just 96.7%, the worst since March 2018, with other sectors hardly setting the world alight either.

The all-day, all-station figures were interesting.  Early arrivals and arrivals over 15 minutes late were down on last month, but on-time and within 3-minute arrivals were up.  All figures saw slight drops in the MAA though, and the cancellation stats (including partial as well as full cancellations) were up to 4.4% which is a very poor figure.

Usual graphs attached.  It will be very interesting to see the results from the next period.

Thanks as always for these.

Do you know what happens next year and how Thames Valley figures and discounts for Seasons will be calculated?

As I was stranded the other day I did wonder about which trains will count towards the GWR figures? I'm assuming I can use delay/repay in the same way I can claim for tube delays with my season ticket for TFL trains? Although quite how you calculate it I have no idea. One journey I caught GWR to Maidenhead but then picked up a much delayed TFL train to Twyford.

Always good to see the black and white of the numbers.
Without wanting to be a stuck record and dwell upon how many services at peak are dropping maidenhead/twyford as the final stop before Paddington in order to make up lost time, is there any way that these cancellations get reflected in the tracked metrics?
I would hate to reach the end of the year and be told that everything has been peachy because the trains dropped my particular stop in order to fudge the numbers...

That's a good question.  As I understand it...

1)  Season tickets from Twyford/Maidenhead would come under the London/Thames Valley sector.  Punctuality data for that is based on Monday-Friday arrivals into London between 7am and 10am, and departures from London between 4-7pm on weekdays  Reliability figures are based on all day Monday to Friday statistics.
2)  Any train that is cancelled in part or full, or misses a stop, or arrives at its destination over 30 minutes late during those periods becomes a CaSL (Cancelled or Significantly Late) service and they then fail the PPM (Public Performance Measure) which means they score against the reliability target.
3)  The London/Thames Valley sector has a punctuality MAA (Moving Annual Average) trigger of 89% and in the four years I've been logging the scores they haven't got close to reaching that.  Nearest was 85.5% in 2016, with the figure currently at 82.6%, so I would be amazed if that trend was to buck upwards so a 5% discount didn't apply. 
4)  For a 10% discount on London/Thames Valley reliability needs to fall below 98% on the MAA.  It did that between March and December 2018, but has been above that since and is currently at 98.6%.  The monthly figure for the last two months has been just below 98%, so if that trend continued then 98% could be triggered again, so that's one to keep an eye on - I will keep everyone updated on this thread.

A few additional points that may alter the above:

1)  Now TfL Rail have taken over the majority of services from Twyford and Maidenhead I am not sure whether it would be their performance figures and procedures that now apply, even though the majority of peak travellers will use GWR services.
2)  A new direct award extension to the franchise or change of operator of the franchise could change the targets for punctuality and/or reliability (though recent direct awards haven't).
3)  Delay-Repay 15 is in use for daily or weekly tickets and the intention is to extend that to longer season tickets at some point.  That would make the PPM figures redundant in terms of season tickets renewal discounts.

Hope that helps, and happy to be corrected on any points as it's a bit of a minefield!

The first full month of 'new timetable' figures are now in.

Some highs and lows as you might expect, but generally pretty encouraging stuff in my opinion.

A high is the performance of the HSS sector.  Charter punctuality was 88.6% for the period, which is 4% higher than the previous period that straddled the timetable change, and only 2% less than the same period last year.  Reliability was 99.1%.  The all day Public Performance Measure for HSS rose 8% on last period.  Yes, it was the second lowest in over a year, but was way higher than figures being recorded in 2018 as an example.  Given the bedding in period I think that's much better than many expected, including myself.

A low is the LTV sector charter punctuality, which was a woeful 63.2% and the lowest I've ever recorded.  That is countered by the all-day PPM score which was a very high 91.3%, above the Moving Annual Average for the last year.  Clearly the peak service on LTV has some way to go though.

Elsewhere the 'Bristol' sector struggled a bit recording just a 79.9% punctuality, and an 85.7% score for 'Wales to South Coast' meant it dipped below the season ticket discount trigger by 0.1% to 88.9%.  To counter that, the all-day cancellation figure across the franchise (which includes trains missing stations, not reaching destination or not starting from planned origin) dropped to 1.9% from a very poor 4.4% the previous period.

Usual graphs attached, plus I'll add another two attachments to an extra post to show some more data, including what a good year 2019 was when compared to 2018, especially for HSS where the 92% figure was well over 10% higher than in 2018!

The two extra attachments of data...

LTV performance has been stubbornly bad for years.

Things we know have changed with the new timetable:
- some services have been transferred to TFL (and therefore presumably not included in the targets)
- electric services are now running to an electric performance envelope, not the 165/166 timings - removing some of the recovery time
- there's some glitches in the new timetable e.g. 0740 DID-OXF

But what is it that's breaking the performance?

I think that is the largest part of explaining the difference between the LTV Passengers Charter figure (very poor at 63.2%) and the LTV all day PPM figure (not too bad at all at 91.3%).  GWR run a good percentage fewer trains that would qualify as trains for the Passengers Charter figures since TfL Rail took over quite a few of them, so the few they do run need to perform otherwise the stats fall very quickly.

Stats for the last period attached.  The storms will have affected figures to a certain extent, but it's difficult to say how much.

Latest figures attached, covering March basically.

This was the first period affected by the Covid 19 alterations.  The first two weeks were the normal timetable with largely normal passenger numbers dipping slightly towards the end of the second week.  The third week was a normal timetable but with a very rapidly decreasing number of passengers.  The fourth and final week was the first week of the new temporary timetable with the trains virtually empty.

A general upswing in the figures, but given the alterations, it's not really worth trying to analyse performance too much, save to say that I expect next period to show some very good results - it's amazing how trains run to time when there aren't very many of them and no pesky passengers!  ;)

We were expecting a leap upwards in the performance figures but I never thought I'd ever see a 100% score being recorded, which was the 'Reliability' score for the Devon sector!

All results are largely academic though as barely anyone was travelling to appreciate them, though as I touched on last month it is an interesting experiment to show how performance increases exponentially when there are fewer trains on the network that is usually creaking at the seams.

It's interesting when you consider that the number of services operating during the emergency timetable, is, on several GWR routes off-peak, the same as it was during the late 70s and early 80s, indeed sometimes more.  They include Paddington to South Wales, from Paddington to Bristol, Paddington to Oxford, Oxford to Didcot, Didcot to Reading, stoppers between Paddington and Reading, CrossCountry services between Reading and Birmingham and many others.  Not so many slow moving 45mph Class 7 freight trains to get in the way nowadays, but plenty of faster freight.

Perhaps it indicates what a good job the current operators and Network Rail do?  Perhaps it indicates that we are trying to run far too many trains on a crowded network?  It would be interesting to see if all the operators ran, say, the 1983 timetable for a day, what the punctuality figures would be.  Perhaps some rose-tinted spectacles would have to be taken off?

Anyway, the usual graphs are attached (all day, all station punctuality to be added).  There appears to be an error with the LTV sector MAA (Moving Annual Average) which dropped from 80.1% to 79.7% despite a 98.6% figure being recorded for the period.

UPDATE:  All day all station punctuality graph now added.  The 'on time' percentage was higher than the usual 'within 3 minutes' percentage.

Any thoughts on how compensation will be worked out? These figures do distort the numbers a bit if you were relying on your normal 5 or 10% discount.

I bit the bullet in the end and applied for a refund but the 10% discount was a big factor in holding off as the numbers didn't quite add up.

It would be interesting to know if anyone kept their season ticket if they had an annual one?  Or whether any special measures will be introduced to reflect this unprecedented period of railway operators.

I’ll certainly be looking closely to see if any sectors rise above discount trigger levels as a result of the emergency timetable.

Surely we have moved on since 1983 in terms of infrastructure, technology, reliability, fewer strikes etc?

Perhaps if you could strip out all the delays due to staff shortages, failed trains, infrastructure failures etc it would be an interesting comparison?

I would imagine that with so many spare crew and trains sitting around doing nothing at the moment, it considerably mitigates most of the usual problems?

Interesting to note from the SWR Stakeholder conference - but a lesson across the industry

a) DfT have declined to change the season ticket refund algorithm though they were asked if they wanted too.  There was a school of though that suggested that season tickets should be refunded "pro rata" so (for example) an annual ticket turned in after six months should get a 50% refund, as the turning in was not really the choice of the purchaser.  However, the situation remains that a six month season period is calculated and the refund is the difference between that an the annual. Example:
Swindon -> London Terminals
12 months - £9272
6 months - £5340
Suggested refund (50% on 50% of year used) - £4636
Actual refund due - £3932

b) ppm figures are still being carefully logged (GWR too) and there is muted celebration of how good they are - nothing to suggest that they won't be used in any future discount level calculations, even though based on a sub-franchise emergency measure service level.

I find both 'A' and 'B' disappointing.

As someone who was initially expecting to be working as usual I faced a much reduced service. At the same time though if I didn't carry on travelling and 'cashed in' I was probably going to be several hundred pounds or more out of pocket.

To then use the much reduced service as a basis for Season ticket renewals seems a double whammy. I get a worse service and have to pay more next renewal.

Yes, I guess that’s largely the point I was making.

I did see one cancelled run earlier, but now gone; shortage of crews already.....really?

Graphs covering up to 30th May attached.  The last period covers two weeks of the initial emergency timetable, and two weeks of the expanded one we now have.

Again, figures were high but only of any real interest for historical reasons as precious few benefited from them.  The published LTV sector MAA for punctuality still looks to be wrong, and by my reckoning should have climbed to just over 81%.  At least some of the graphs are making a fairly pleasing shape of a dragon!

Graphs for the latest period attached.  Emergency timetable operating throughout.

The 'Wales to South Coast' sector MAA (Moving Annual Average) has climbed above the charter discount rate for punctuality.  Otherwise, nothing much to report.

Usual graphs attached.  Covid-19 emergency timetable running throughout.  Again not much to report, though a general uplift on last period. 

Had you been one of the few travelling on a GWR train over the last four months, chances are you'd have arrived at your destination early, with more than an 85% chance of you being on time.  ;)

Graphs for the latest period, covering up to 22nd August, attached.

A noticeable drop off in performance with more passengers and trains now returning to the timetable.

This period included one week of the new timetable, with a significant number of trains returning.   There was a general uplift in performance following the slight dip last month, which is encouraging given the extra trains that were running, though interestingly this wasn't reflected so much in the all-day figures.

Usual graphs attached...

Latest period graphs attached.  As to be expected, another solid month.  Bristol performance has climbed enough to come out of season ticket charter discounts for the first time since Autumn 2017, though of course season tickets renewals have fallen through the floor.

The latest period's graphs are attached.  The first of the two main periods that are affected by the leaf fall season, and the general slight dip in performance and reliability is probably the result of that.

Wales to South Coast has climbed above the season ticket trigger reliability threshold for the first time since I've been noting them down (over three years now).  This means only two of the ten categories are now below the trigger point for 5% renewal discounts,  Plymouth/Cornwall reliability, and London & Thames Valley punctuality.  The latter is still only at 82.4%, some 6.6% below the trigger level and now has fewer trains than before so the MAA is taking longer to respond to the affects of the pandemic, but it on a trajectory where it will be above the trigger level in four or five periods time.

The usual graphs are attached covering the period up to 12th December, so the last one where the leaf fall season had an impact on performance.  A general upward trend on the previous period, and far better results than the same period last year, meant the MAA (Moving Annual Average) either climbed or stayed steady across the board for both the punctuality and reliability metrics.

The Plymouth/Cornwall reliability figure was 98.1%, which is 0.4% below the season ticket discount threshold of 98.5%, but the MAA actually rose to 98.6% (last year the same period was a woeful 95.9%), meaning no more season ticket renewal discounts of 5%.  The only discount now offered across the network is 5% for LTV seasons as its punctuality metric is still below the trigger point.

This was all before the COVID related crew shortages and flooding events took hold though, so it will be very interesting to see how next period shapes up.

Well, the data is in.  And it's a tale of highs and lows, or punctuality and reliability.

Punctuality was better than the corresponding period last year despite the flooding and crew shortages.  All six sectors saw their Moving Annual Average (MAA) rise, with HSS now at 93.5%.  The actual figures for the period weren't exactly amazing, but this time last year it was the launch of the new timetable, so everything took a bit of a hit as a result of that.

Reliability however came crashing down.  With Plymouth depot very much the worst hit with Covid related staff unavailability, we saw the Plymouth/Cornwall sector drop to just 90.4% reliability, which is over 5% lower (or twice as bad) as the previous low I'd noted in the last three years.  That was enough to drag the MAA down to 98.2%, below the charter discount trigger it had climbed above only one period ago!  The HSS figure was also poor at 95.4%, but that was only slightly lower than the same period last year, so the MAA dropped just 0.1%.

Graphs attached...

Two more attachments...

HSS 95.4% reliability in December?

How on Earth could that be the case given the large amount of foreshortenings & cancellations due to crew shortages?

At a (very) rough guess, a percentage figure like that would equate to around 300 cancellations over the period based on the daily number of HSS trains that run.  There were a few days with around 30 cancellations/part cancellations, but for over half of the period there were none or very few.

Also, I remember events outside of the railway's control were exempt from the original passengers' charter scheme that these figures are derived from.  Things like fatalities are covered by that, but I'm not sure about flooding.

Ah I see - so presumably all the COVID related crew shortage cancellations/part cancellations would have also been excluded from the figures as outside of the railway's control? That may also explain the figures appearing unrealistically good!

No. I think they would have been included, it is the ones relating to the flooding I am not so sure about. That would explain why the two sectors that Plymouth depot are partly responsible for supplying crews for (Devon/Cornwall and HSS) fared much worse than the others for cancellations.  Plymouth depot was of course where the COVID cases and self-isolations hit a very high level.

HSS would have planned to operate about 9000 trains during the period (again that is just my rough estimate) mostly on routes that were largely unaffected, so if there were around 300 hundred cancellations, which looking back at posts from the time looks about right, that would equal around 5%.

Normal (good) service has resumed following the previous period being affected by Covid-19 staff shortages and bad weather.

Graphs attached.

Latest graphs attached following Period 12's results.

As discussed in the Delay-Repay thread already, the big development was the LTV punctuality MAA (Moving Annual Average) climbing above the season ticket discount trigger level for the first time in as long as I can remember, and something that would have been unthinkable just over a year ago.  Obviously that is due to the Covid pandemic and the large uplift in performance as a result, but the MAA has climbed over 10% since the same period last year, to 91.4%.

Other sectors continued to post good results with all other MAA's rising with the exception of Devon reliability which stayed level at its already high mark of 99.5%.

The 'Plymouth/Cornwall' reliability metric is now the only one which is triggering a charter discount across the TOC, 0.2% below the trigger point of 98.5%.  That small increase might take some achieving though as the Covid affected period late last year led to a 90.4% reliability score which will be a big weight on the MAA until the end of this year.

With the announcement that season tickets will be dealt with under the Delay-Repay scheme, I wonder whether the traditional charter figures will continue to be published?  They are only directly relevant to season ticket holders, though give a reasonably accurate picture of how GWR are performing.  Though, whatever happens, it is good news IMHO that the much fairer Delay-Repay system will be applying to season tickets as well

So much easier to run a railway on time without passengers!  ;D

And commuting is so less stressful without having to go to the office... ;D

A lot cheaper too!

One year on from the effects of the pandemic.

A huge leap upwards in train performance.  At the start of the pandemic we had five of the twelve charter groups giving a discount, that is now just one.  The number of trains that are arriving at stations early or on time throughout the day has increase by 13.6% from 66.7% to 80.3%, and trains arriving within 15 minutes - at the point the Delay Repay refunds start - has risen from 97.6% to 98.9%.

Where should the rail industry be striving to get to when normality returns?  Well, it's obvious that less peak trains will be needed than pre-covid levels, and perhaps less off-peak ones as well.  But it's also obvious that there will be many more passengers that we have seen over the last 12 months and the actual number of trains running is likely to return to somewhere between 90-95% of the pre-covid levels. 

Perhaps a figure mid-way between where we were at the start of restrictions and where we are now would be a good target point?

Usual graphs attached...

Latest graphs attached covering up until the end of April.  Not much to say really, as performance and MAA's have plateaued at high levels as expected.  Next period will of course cover the 9-days of major IET availability issues, so it will be interesting to see what affect that has.  Also going forward in subsequent periods the re-introduction of the large majority of trains for the Summer timetable coinciding with the relaxation of restrictions will have some kind of an effect I'm sure.

A distinct dip in performance last period (covering 2nd-29th May), which included the major disruption caused by the IET fleet near stoppage as well as increasing passenger numbers.

HSS recorded 90.9% punctuality and 96.3% reliability.  That's the worst punctuality score since the pandemic started and the worst reliability score in at least three and a half years, though I was expecting the figures to be worse - the punctuality score is still above target.  The other sectors also saw dips, presumably as part of the fallout from HSS, though they were much less pronounced.  However reliability on the South Wales to South Coast sector was 98.1% which was enough to drag the MAA (Moving Annual Average) down to 98.5% which triggers a 5% season ticket discount renewal...not that that's happening much these days!

Usual graphs attached...

I got a bit behind, so here's two months for the price of one to catch up.

Two fairly poor periods.  Not too surprising given the increasing numbers of staff being pinged for Covid-19, as well as the arrival of summer and the on-going rolling stock issues.  Figures were still of a comparable nature to pre-pandemic levels though, so it shown the boost in punctuality you get when not running quite as many trains.

Usual graphs attached...

Why should the arrival of summer affect performance?

Lack of staff due to the maximum number of people allowed being on annual leave.

Latest results cover up to 21st August.

Punctuality now largely back to what it was pre-pandemic, though of course the MAA's will take a few months to reflect that.  Reliability scores for the period were very poor - 94.9% for Bristol and 95.2% for Devon is far worse than the typical 98-99% range.  Wales to South Coast was even lover at 93%, though has tended to fluctuate a bit more over the years.

As a result, the Bristol sector has breached its reliability threshold for the first time since mid-2019.

Punctuality graphs attached...

Latest graphs attached covering up to 18th September.

Punctuality seems to be settling back to the place it was in during 2019, as mentioned last month. 

Reliability continues to be very poor though with three consecutive months of 4% or more daily services cancelled or missing stops.  That has had an impact on the Charter reliability as you would expect.  HSS and Devon sectors will be triggering a charter discount from next period unless things improve dramatically, joining Bristol, Plymouth/Cornwall and Wales/South Coast.  Only the LTV sector is still well above the trigger level.

Thank you for all this work - statistics beat anecdata any day of the week!

Looking at the numbers it would appear that the 'new normal' has a close similarity to the 'old normal' for the longer distance trains. Having said that the reduced numbers of IETs available have clearly had a strong influence on the results.

For the London and Thames Valley services is there any evidence that longer trains have had an influence in reducing boarding delays compared to the shorter Class 165/166 operated services? The 9 coach long Crossrail trains must also have had an effect even if they are not directly included in the GWR statistics.

I think the biggest change for the LTV sector is that there are far fewer trains now being counted since TfL took over.  COVID muddies the water of course, but there can be little doubt that dwell times have reduced on the suburban trains into Paddington now.  The three doors per carriage of the Class 345s helps in that regard.

Ah! That's a point I hadn't considered - fewer trains being counted.

Does that mean that there will be no numerical published results for the FfL services in future? We'll have to make do with 'Good Service' or 'Delays' as classifications...?  :(

Two periods for the price of one this update!

The first one was pretty reasonable, the second one pretty poor.  Very poor in terms of reliability, where the HSS and Plymouth/Cornwall sectors both saw the MAA drop below the trigger point for season tickets.  The only sector not now triggering for reliability is the LTV sector.

Punctuality is generally better, but still dipping to the kind of levels we were seeing pre-pandemic.  Perhaps not too surprising?

Latest graphs attached showing the period up to 11th December 2021.

A couple of periods worth of data shown in the graphs below.  A general rise in punctuality accross the two periods.  Not shown in the graphs is the reliability which was, as you'd expect, very low until miraculously recovering to very high levels last period when the amended 'temporary' timetable was brought in.

Depending on which side of the fence you sit, that could either be described as 'a perfect response to make sure passengers could rely on the service over a challenging period', or 'a blatant attempt to massage the figures and sneak through longer term permanent cancellations'!

Two more graphs:

The period covering up to Saturday 5th March is attached.

Not a huge amount to report.  A pretty good month for punctuality.  And pretty good for reliability (which isn't shown in the attached), with the 'temporary' timetable in operation.

I doubt many have noticed, but in case you're wondering why this thread hasn't been updated recently, the GWR website itself hasn't been updated with Charter performance stats since 4th May.

The 'monthly performance' and 'monthly on-time' reports continue to be updated, but perhaps they are no longer publishing Charter ones?  As far as I know season ticket discounts are still based upon them.  Does anybody know more?

TBMK season ticket holders are now directed to Delay Repay rather than renewal discounts.