Rail Transport| Rail transport
One of the north of England’s main railway companies is taking advantage of an “outrageous” legal loophole that allows it to vastly under-report cancellations, it has emerged.
According to the Guardian, TransPennine Express cancelled 30% of all trains during October’s half-term holiday and at least 20% every week thereafter until November 20th. Although most of the services were cancelled, some trains started or finished at stations that are not listed in the current May 2022 timetable.
TPE did not dispute the figures and apologized.
TPE will still report cancellations of between 5.6% and 10.8% when it submits performance statistics to the Office of Road and Rail, the government agency that collects information about train reliability.
This is because the ORR allows companies in effect to ignore trains that were preemptively cancelled the night before. Such cancellations are known as “p-coded services”. These trains don’t then appear in the industry system, count towards official figures, or allow automatic delay repay claims.
The ORR will only report cancellations that occur on the day. That does not take into account the disruption of passengers who have booked in advance – for example, someone who has booked a train to get to Manchester airport to catch a flight, or who gets off a plane late at night to find themselves stranded.
According to airport management, 25% of all TPE trains from and to the airport were cancelled between 7 September and now. The summer saw rail travel to the airport drop by 25% as more people were unable to make it.
“Despite having taken steps to improve the reliability of services to Manchester airport, dozens of trains are still being cancelled, or terminating prior to the airport, at short notice every day. This causes significant cost and inconvenience for passengers, at a time when they need it least,” said Chris Woodroofe, Manchester airport’s managing director.
Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, said that the p-code loophole “puts vested interests before the public interest. It’s outrageous, there’s no other word for it.”
He added: “People have lost trust in trains. If you are going to get a flight, to a match or to a gig, you can’t be sure you’ll get there or back and so there’s the insurance policy of the car. It’s really damaging for us as a city region.”
Friday’s meeting of the Greater Manchester combined authority was unanimous in agreeing that Avanti and TPE would have to significantly reduce cancellations by the next meeting, 16 December. If this happens, it would then call on the government for both companies to be stripped of their franchises.
The Guardian estimated that 442 TransPennine services had been cancelled or partially cancelled the night before travel on the seven days leading up to 25 November. One hundred were on the Manchester-Cleethorpes route, which left the seaside resort isolated.
A spokesperson for TransPennine Express said: “While our service delivery is not where we want it to be, there has been a reduction in the number of cancellations we have had to make in recent weeks, and providing as reliable a service as possible for customers remains our biggest priority.
“We are sorry to anyone who has been affected by this ongoing disruption. This has been caused by high levels of train crew sickness, an intensive crew training programme (which includes a training backlog as a direct result of Covid), and infrastructure issues outside of our control, which combined have seen a number of ‘on-the-day’ cancellations or cancellations made the night before.
“To keep customers informed we ensure these cancellations are shown in industry systems and any pre-planned cancellations are shared via our website each evening. Anyone who is affected by their train being cancelled can apply for a refund.”
An ORR spokesperson said: “Services properly cancelled prior to 22:00 the night before the service day are not part of the rail cancellation data. This definition does not change with the historical data.
“We are currently working through a project to quantify relevant changes to service provision, to add context to our future statistical releases.”