Hull Trains worst for punctuality, figures show

Hull Trains has the worst record in the country for punctuality, new figures show.

Only 36.8% of the company's services arrived on time, followed by TransPennine Express (38.7%) and London North Eastern Railway (41%).

The best figure was recorded by c2c (83.2%) in East London and South Essex.

New tougher standards mean trains are considered to be punctual if they are within a minute of the schedule, rather than the previous five or 10 minutes.

The Office of Rail and Road figures showed fewer than two-thirds of scheduled stops at stations were made "on time" during the 12 months to the end of June.

Passenger watchdog Transport Focus described the figure of 64.7% as "not acceptable", although it represents a small year-on-year improvement.

Hull Trains, Britain's smallest rail company, is to introduce five new Paragon trains for its seven services a day between Hull and London in a bid to improve reliability.

The company said it "faced a number of challenges throughout the period under review".

The new £60m fleet would increase "capacity by 20 per cent" and would "quickly see us back at the top of all performance and customer league tables", it added.

Under the new rules, punctuality is recorded at every stop on a train's route, whereas previously it was based on when a train reached its final destination.

Anthony Smith, of Transport Focus, said "clearly one-third of trains running late is not acceptable".

He added the new figures reflecting actual arrival times would "help rebuild trust in the railway".

A TransPennine Express statement said: "Over the course of this year we have made changes to our timetable to improve performance, but we know that there is still work to do and we are fully committed to getting this right for our customers."

New trains, due soon, would result in greater reliability and capacity, it added.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the new statistics would "stop masking whether trains are really on time".

"Commuters just want their trains to run on time and that's my first priority", he said.

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