Arriva welcomes latest UK rail industry performance report

Arriva, one of Europe’s largest transport services organisations, has welcomed the latest National Rail Trends report published by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR).

Latest industry train performance figures indicate that the group’s Arriva Trains Wales (ATW) business is the UK’s most improved rail operator with 93 per cent of its services arriving on time, representing a 5.6 per cent improvement on the same period in the previous year.

Bob Holland, Arriva’s managing director – UK Trains who has overall responsibility for the ATW franchise, said: “Our focus has been on consistently driving up the punctuality and reliability of our trains.

“We made a commitment to our customers and other stakeholders that we would bring improvements and these latest independent figures show that through the efforts of our professional team of people at ATW we are delivering on our promise.

“Whilst the performance figures are welcome news, we also recognise there is still more to do. We are confident that our recent opening of a £3 million state-of-art train care facility in Machynlleth combined with improvements to our Canton depot will help ensure our fleet is well maintained and better prepared to cope with the demands of the busy and complex network of services we operate.

“In addition to driving up performance, we will continue to work with our industry partners to look at ways to improve the quality of service our customers experience by enhancing station facilities, customer information and strengthening services to help meet the growing number of people choosing to travel by rail.”

The Arriva group also operates rail services in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. On 11 November, it will start operating the new CrossCountry rail franchise – the most extensive in the UK – and from December 2007 it will operate a new rail contract in north-west Poland.

National Rail Trends 2007-2008 was published on 18 October and covers Quarter 1 (April, May and June 2007). The report is available on the ORR’s website at http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/341.pdf