TransPennine Express cancelled almost a quarter of all its trains in a month, including more than 1,000 the night before they were due to run, new data has revealed.
Under-fire TPE, which has now revealed a lengthy 'recovery plan' has been submitted to the Government, ranked the highest of all train operating companies in terms of cancellations by some distance in the figures published by the rail regulator.
Pre-planned service cancellations, known as P-coded trains, are removed from systems by 10pm the evening before, but crucially do not count towards official performance figures - an industry loophole which led rail bosses in Greater Manchester to claim reliability statistics from TPE were being 'masked'.
READ MORE:
They were designed to be used as an emergency measure but have become commonplace, to the fury of passengers who can wake up in the morning to find their planned train has been wiped from a timetable overnight.
The figures released cover a 28-day period between January 8 and February 4, the latest statistics available. They show TPE cancelled 1,048 trains - an average of around 37 every day - using P-codes during that period and there were also 312 'part-cancelled' trains, services which don't arrive at their pre-scheduled destinations.
Regulator the Office of Rail and Road said: "TransPennine Express recorded the largest difference between its official and adjusted cancellations scores for 8 January to 4 February, 2023. Its adjusted cancellations figure was more than 14 percentage points higher."
By contrast, Northern cancelled 182 trains with P-codes, with other operators in double or single figures.
The Office of Rail and Road said official cancellations data is sourced from Network Rail. The data on the number of 'resource availability shortage precancellations' - or P-codes - have been supplied by each individual train operator, which explains the 'official and adjusted' figures.
The data published on Friday showed the cancellations score for the year to February 4 was four per cent.
This is up from three per cent 12 months earlier and represents the highest figure in records dating back to 2014. The cancellations score shows the percentage of services that are either fully or part-cancelled, with part-cancellations counted as half a full cancellation.
The ORR said TPE's cancellations score for that period is adjusted from 8.9 per cent to 23.7 per cent when P-coding is taken into account.
The ORR said it wrote to all train operators last month to 'seek their confirmation that they will support and participate in action by the industry to stop the use of P-code pre-cancellations'. Data will be published every quarter until that is done. The regulator said the late changes being made to timetables by withdrawing services happen when insufficient staff, or no appropriate trains, are available, but it said it was an 'inappropriate application' of industry codes.
The 1,048 figure for TPE represented P-coded trains cancelled due to a 'shortage of available train crew' - the only reason given, revealed the ORR.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has already confirmed he will be asking for the company's 'contract to be terminated when it expires in May' unless there's a major reduction in cancellations by February, next month.
Mr Burnham, speaking at Friday's Greater Manchester Transport Committee, repeated that vow and called TPE's operation 'not a service'. He said: "It is quite frankly appalling, the level of service. It's had a devastating affect.
"TransPennine is the outlier here. It is absolutely scandalous failure in my view. The time has come to remove the franchise from TransPennine Express. They were poor before the pandemic. I do not believe we can see a renewal of that contract in May."
The numbers were published as TPE revealed a formal 53-point 'recovery plan' has now been submitted to the Department for Transport and was awaiting ministerial approval.
Darren Higgins, TPE's commercial director, said: "We have submitted a recovery plan to Rail North Partnership and the Department for Transport. That recovery plan sets out how we will work to return service levels for communities and customers back to the levels that they expect and deserve."
But he said the plan was 'an acknowledgment' that since the December 2022 timetable, performance has not been acceptable to customers and stakeholders'. "It contains a series of highly-focused actions. 53 core actions and 16 principle actions," added Mr Higgins.
"Many of the actions within the plan are in hand and are aimed at reducing the levels of cancellations. The plan does contain a recovery trajectory. There will be a period by period reduction in driver-related cancellations through the Spring and into the Summer."
The FirstGroup-owned company has previously blamed a combination of problems, such as high levels of train crew sickness and a training backlog. It has also been hit by workers not volunteering to do paid overtime on rest days, and infrastructure faults.
A spokesperson for TransPennine Express said: "The combined impact of prolonged higher-than-usual sickness levels, the significant driver training programme to facilitate the delivery of the Transpennine Route Upgrade and an aligned lack of a driver overtime agreement, has led to the need to remove services from the timetable on a day-by-day basis through pre-planned cancellations.
"These decisions are not taken lightly, and pre-planned cancellations are only applied (in accordance with industry guidelines) when resources are not available to cover advertised services in order to maximise advance notice of service changes for customers.
"When services are cancelled in advance, we ensure these are represented in industry systems as well as Journeycheck, via our website, to give customers as much information as possible. Delay Repay is available in relation to all pre-planned cancellations, via the TPE website, as these are treated in the same way as on-the-day cancellations. These cancellations are also reported to ORR. Our aim is to be as open and transparent as possible and to give our customers the information they need to be able to make informed choices about their travel arrangements.
"TPE provides a hugely important service to communities across the North and into Scotland. We know that the service being offered to customers is unacceptable at present and we want to assure our customers that we are doing all we can to resolve a number of issues and deliver a train service they can rely on.
"Prolonged disruption has been caused by a combination of ongoing high levels of sickness and an unprecedented training backlog following the pandemic, coupled with increased training demands to support major route, such as the Transpennine Route Upgrade, and timetable upgrades, together with the withdrawal from overtime working by ASLEF drivers which has dramatically reduced our roster flexibility to complete the training required.
"The biggest and most immediate positive impact for customers would be for ASLEF to allow drivers to work overtime again. Late last year we were given authority from DfT to make a new overtime offer but this was rejected by ASLEF without putting it to their members. The offer remains on the table and we encourage everyone who can influence the situation to work together to improve the situation for all."
Read more of today's top stories here
READ NEXT:
- Anger over 'dangerous' south Manchester road where cyclist killed and BMW smashed into lamppost
- They queued, then row after row of mourners poured into the park to pay their respects to Brianna
- Mum-of-two left 'scarred for life' after suffering 'beast-like' attack on night out
- Wide-eyed Sainsbury's shoppers on opening day of now lost Manchester supermarket
- Peter Faulding changes mind on Nicola Bulley after discovering what police knew
