Current status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 October 2016
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to tackle ScotRail's performance regarding delays to train services in Mid Scotland and Fife.
ScotRail’s performance as a whole, has fallen below the expectations of passengers, and the demanding performance targets set by Scottish Ministers. The contractual targets are intentionally challenging, demanding a consistent improvement in punctuality and reliability over the life of the franchise, leading to 92.5% of trains being at their destination on time, as measured by the rail industry’s Public Performance Measure, by April 2019. ScotRail’s current performance here nationally is 89.6% over the last twelve months, against a target for the end of the second year of the franchise of 91.3 percent.
The mid-Scotland and Fife area falls into the ‘Suburban East’ franchise sector. In this sector, ScotRail’s current performance is sitting at a moving-annual-average of 89.5 percent, against a specific target for that sector for the end of the second year of the franchise, of 92.5 percent.
Under the terms of the Franchise Agreement, Transport Scotland (an agency of the Scottish Government) requested that ScotRail provide an Improvement Plan, which will outline their plans to address performance issues and achieve their contractual targets. This was received by Transport Scotland on 16th September, and is now being reviewed, with the actions within the plan to be monitored.
The Improvement Plan has three points of focus: infrastructure, fleet and operations:
For the infrastructure, much is being done to improve signalling and cabling:
For the fleet, the emphasis is now much more on focussed maintenance initiatives, especially for the radiators on the Class 158 rolling stock, as these have been a particular source of concern;
For the operations, a specific focus on reviewing staff and passenger behaviours on the lines which are known to facing significant levels of delay.