30% of South West trains arriving late

---

Expensive ad campaign can't mask poor performance

The latest report from the strategic Rail Authority shows that nationally there is a slow improvement in train performance.

At a local level, however, the numbers suggest a mixed situation with regards to punctuality. In the quarter to to June 2004 84.5% of trains ran on time up by 0.2% compared to the same period last year.

South West Trains slipped back into last place for both peak and all day operations in the London area for the latest quarter. Over 30% of peak time trains on this network, which serves Chiswick, Putney, Brentford and Wandsworth, where more than 5 minutes late.

The company has recently embarked on a major advertising campaign to boost their battered public image and shake off the label of 'South Worst Trains'. This so far seems to have back-fired with passengers questioning whether the money would have been better spent improving the quality of service. The company attracted criticism recently for failing to keep passengers informed of weekend engineering works. However, users of the Hounslow Loop line have an improved frequency of service to look forward to at the end of this year

Silverlink Trains, which runs the North London Line, continues to do relatively well with its peak service amongst the most reliable in the capital

Nicola Shaw, SRA Managing Director said, "The industry is trying. There are signs that where the effort has been greatest it is succeeding. But it's not yet universal or consistent. That level of effort is required all the way through everything we do, throughout the industry, so that passengers experience the results of those efforts."

Complaints per 100,000 journeys between April and June 2004 decreased by 10.1% compared with the same period the previous year. London and South East Operators showed a decrease in complaints of 41.2% over the same period.

Public Performance Measure by train operating company

Percentage of trains arriving on time 2004-05 Q1

	2004-05 Q1	2003-04 Q1	Year to 30 June 2004	Year to 31 March 2004
London and SE operators All day
c2c	93.1	86.4	87.6	85.9
Chiltern Railways	93.3	91.4	91.4	90.9
First Great Western Link1	84.6	79.3	80.4	79.1
ONE	89.1	-	-	-
Silverlink	83.0	88.1	80.2	81.5
South Eastern Trains	86.5	84.2	80.8	80.1
South West Trains	78.2	78.0	74.5	74.5
Southern	81.8	84.6	79.5	80.1
Thameslink	79.4	78.2	74.4	74.0
WAGN2	89.9	86.3	83.8	83.8
Sector Level	84.5	84.0	80.6	80.5
London and SE operators Peak
c2c	91.9	85.7	87.0	85.5
Chiltern Railways	92.5	90.3	88.6	88.1
First Great Western Link1	80.7	75.2	75.4	74.1
ONE	85.6	-	-	-
Silverlink	85.0	92.6	84.8	86.7
South Eastern Trains	82.8	81.0	75.7	75.3
South West Trains	75.4	78.7	72.3	73.1
Southern	78.5	84.8	75.8	77.3
Thameslink	71.7	75.0	67.8	68.4
WAGN2	87.9	83.8	79.7	79.8
Sector Level	81.9	83.0	77.6	77.9
National Level	84.5	84.3	81.2	81.2

¹ Formerly Thames Trains

September 28, 2004