Passenger numbers have grown substantially in the last decade. Over the next 25 years, we expect the numbers of passenger journeys to rise by between 40 per cent (in the South East of England) and 100 per cent (in the other urban areas). Our CP4 delivery plan, published in 2009, sets out how we will meet these major opportunities in passenger growth. It is our role to provide a safe, reliable and efficient service for passengers and freight users.
Punctuality
Train punctuality, as measured by the public performance measure1, fell by 0.6 percentage points to 90.9 per cent in 2010/11 (2009/10: 91.5 per cent). The drop in performance was mainly as a result of the severe winter weather which disrupted services across Britain during November and December 2010.
Whilst we cannot control the weather, we need to continue to focus on maximising the resilience of our network to extreme climatic conditions throughout the seasons. We are working on a wide range of initiatives to address this and other issues in order to return to targeted levels of punctuality and reliability.
Passenger satisfaction
Independent surveys are carried out regularly with our passengers to find out their levels of satisfaction with their rail service. The biannual Passenger Focus National Passenger Survey has shown steady improvements over the past four years with the most recent figures from 2010/11 showing 83 per cent (spring 2010) and 84 per cent (autumn 2010) of passengers were satisfied with their journey overall (autumn 2009: 83 per cent). 84 per cent is the highest percentage recorded since the survey started in autumn 1999.
Passenger safety
Safety remains the number one consideration in everything we do. Since 2008/09, we have seen a continuing improvement in passenger safety. Our Passenger Safety Indicator (PSI), which measures passenger safety risk associated with Network Rail activity, is currently at 0.171 (2009/10: 0.215), meeting our 2010/11 target of 0.246 and well ahead of our April 2014 target of 0.240. We continue to strive for further improvement, to prevent injuries and fatalities occurring on the railway.
More information on safety can be found in our Annual Report and Accounts at: www.networkrail.co.uk or the Keeping Safe section of this report.
1 PPM: The percentage of trains ‘on time’ compared to the total number of trains planned on a given day. A train is defined as ‘on time’ if it arrives within five minutes of the planned destination arrival time for London and South East or regional services, or 10 minutes for long distance services.