A letter has been sent to the rail industry which lay out the need for change in regard to how ‘pre-cancellations’ are recorded and also to bring in line a more passenger-friendly and clear approach to working when late changes to services are made.

The latest investigation carried out by the regulator has revealed that passengers across a large part of the GB rail network are experiencing poor performance with train cancellations hitting record levels. The investigation found a gap between cancellation statistics and passenger experience which has been driven due to an increased number of unrecorded ‘pre-cancellations’.

‘Pre-cancellations’ such as these are created using a process called ‘p-coding’ and are able to be confirmed right up to 22:00 the evening prior and are therefore not included in timetables which railway performance statistics are measured against.

Passengers planning travel the evening prior to their journey may experience ‘pre-cancellations’ by finding that the train they expected to catch in the morning has disappeared from the timetable. The passenger in this circumstance may not be aware of the service cancellation and leave for their journey not aware that the train has in fact been cancelled.

Historically, ‘pre-cancellations’ have been utilised in circumstances such as the introduction of emergency timetables because of bad weather or damage to infrastructure which requires a full-scale change for a train service. Service performance in these circumstances should be measured against the published replacement (emergency) timetable.

The Office of Rail and Road has found that during the last year, ‘pre-cancellations’ are being used in a different manner and have seen late changes made to timetables by withdrawing services at times when there are not enough staff members or no suitable trains available. The regulator says that this activity is not an appropriate use of the Network Code’s provisions in regard to emergency timetables.

The regulator’s letter to all train operating companies has told them to stop this inappropriate action and has also required Network Rail to organise an improved approach in this regard. Further to this, the Office of Rail and Road requires all train operating companies to provide specific figures on any ‘resource availability pre-cancellations’ and will release this information with official statistics in the future in order to provide the public with full transparency.

Feras Alshaker, Director, Planning & Performance, said: ”We recognise this temporary mechanism was used to help passengers through a time of frequent disruption by telling them as early as possible when their train service was cancelled.

“But good passenger information can still be achieved while retaining full transparency, robustness and trustworthiness of the official statistics.

“As such, we need all train companies and Network Rail to come up with a more passenger-friendly method of making late changes. While this does not fix the performance problems themselves, it will support better passenger information while ensuring that the industry statistics remain a transparent and accurate representation of the service provided.

“This in turn will allow important service and investment decisions for the future to be based on the right information.”