Network Rail beats punctuality targets

Network Rail beat all its targets on punctuality last year for the first time but has pledged to continue working to cut delays.

The company in charge of Britain’s rail infrastructure unveiled tougher targets that it hopes will return the service to levels not seen since before the Hatfield crash in October 2000. Delays on the network have been cut by 16 per cent over the past year, the state-backed company said, down from 13.7 million minutes of delays to 11.5 million minutes.

This beats the independent rail regulator’s target of 12.3 million minutes and goes some way towards Network Rail’s aim of having 86.1 per cent of trains running on time by August 2006.

“Network Rail is raising the bar on train punctuality. We’ve made substantial improvements in the last year, and now we want to go even further, even faster,” said chairman Ian McAllister.