Railways: Standards
(asked on 12th February 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the written answer 907855 of 12 February 2026, if he will provide the data on (a) punctuality and (b) cancellations for (i) publicly owned and (ii) privately owned operators in each of the last five years.
Data on passenger rail performance, including both quarterly accredited official statistics and periodic management information on cancellations and punctuality for all Train Operating Companies (TOCs), is published by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) on the ORR Data Portal.
The Railways (Public Ownership) Act only came into effect in November 2024. Prior to this, operators run by the Department for Transport’s Operator of Last Resort (DfT OLR) were not recognised as being in “public ownership”, now referred to as the DfT Operator (DFTO).
The profile of TOCs within DOLR and subsequently DFTO has changed over time and a five-year time series comparing “publicly owned” and “privately owned” operators would not provide a meaningful comparison.
Table 1 shows the most recent comparative figures for the DFTO and DfT ‑ contracted operators for the 12 months to 3 Jan 2026 (Rail Period 10, 2025/26).
Table 1. Performance of the DFT Operator1 and DfT-contracted2 operators in the 12 months to 3 Jan 2026 (Rail Period 10, 2025/26)
Groupings | Cancellations | Trains arriving within 3 minutes (percentage) |
DfT Operator (DFTO)1 | 3.1% | 83.0% |
DfT contracted Operators (private sector)2‑contracted | 4.5% | 81.9% |
Notes
1. During this period, seven TOCs were under the DfT Operator (DFTO) and seven were privately operated under DfT contracts. (West Midlands Trains did not transfer to DFTO until 1 February and is therefore included in the privately operated group for this period.)
2. The following operators are outside the scope of this comparison, as they are contracted by devolved authorities: Transport for Wales Rail, Scotrail, Caledonian Sleeper, Merseyrail, Elizabeth line and London Overground. Open access operators are also excluded from this comparison.
Source: DfT analysis of Table 3124 - Trains planned and cancellations by operator (periodic); Table 3138 - Train punctuality at recorded station stops by operator (periodic)