Better performance marks start of new railway year

Last updated: Wednesday, 9 May 2018

  • More than nine out of 10 trains, 92%, met their target - the best since 16 September 2017.

  • 0.1% of trains, over four weeks, failed to stop – known as skip stopping.

  • In the previous four weeks, 0.5% of trains failed to stop.

  • ScotRail continues to be the best performing large operator in the UK.


The rail industry standard public performance measure - trains that arrive within five minutes of their scheduled time, having stopped at all scheduled stations – for the four-week period to 30 April 2018 was 92%, the best ScotRail train performance since 16 September 2017.

This improved performance coincides with ScotRail changing its ‘skip-stop’ policy to cut out the practice except when no other option is available – such as a station being closed or a train having to divert due to an incident. 66 out of 58,600 trains that ran in the four-week period skipped stops – a reduction of 72% on the previous four weeks. Last week, just four trains, due to incidents, skipped stops.

The biggest incident impacting customers was flooding near Winchburgh on the Edinburgh to Glasgow route. ScotRail Alliance – a partnership between Network Rail Scotland and ScotRail - has put in place additional pumping equipment at this high-risk flood site to reduce the risk of any future incidents.

Speaking about the improved performance figures, the ScotRail Alliance’s Managing Director Alex Hynes, said:

“I am pleased to start the new railway year off on such a positive note. We take seriously all customer feedback and we appreciate how frustrated they have been with skip stopping. One of the key performance measures we’ve implemented is removing skip stopping except as an absolute last resort.

“As this year progresses, our customers will continue to see improvements as more of the 20 Donovan Performance Improvement Recommendations begin to support the improvement of the day-to-day running of services.

“We are building the best railway Scotland has ever had and service performance is a huge part of this delivery. Everyone at the ScotRail Alliance is working together to deliver these improvements.”