Railways: Standards
(asked on 10th March 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of trains on Network Rail were cancelled or arrived at their final destination more than 10 minutes late in the last year for which information is available; and what the principal reasons for those cancellations and delays were.
For the period 2 February 2025 – 31 January 2026, 8.8 per cent of trains planned in Great Britain were either cancelled, part cancelled or arrived at their destination at least ten minutes late.
The two main causes for cancellations using established industry categories for delays and cancellations were fleet (21 per cent) and traincrew (20 per cent).
Non-Track Assets (e.g. signal failures, points failures, overhead line problems) and Network Management and other (e.g. unexplained delays, Network Rail operations, vegetation management) each caused 17 per cent of the delays, with fleet accounting for another 16 per cent.
Below is a table showing the percentages of the causes of delay and cancellations:
Industry Category | % of Cancellations |
Fleet | 20.9% |
Traincrew | 19.8% |
Non-Track Assets | 18.1% |
External (including fatalities, trespass, vandalism, lineside fires, etc) | 14.8% |
Network Management/Other | 8.7% |
Track | 5.1% |
TOC Other | 5.0% |
Severe Weather, Autumn & Structures | 3.7% |
Operations | 2.6% |
Stations | 1.4% |
Industry Category | % Delay Minutes |
Non-Track Assets | 17.4% |
Network Management/Other | 17.4% |
Fleet | 16.0% |
External (including fatalities, trespass, vandalism, lineside fires, etc) | 14.4% |
Traincrew | 8.4% |
TOC Other | 7.8% |
Track | 7.3% |
Severe Weather, Autumn & Structures | 4.7% |
Stations | 3.7% |
Operations | 2.9% |
Note: all figures rounded to 1 decimal place and may not add up to exactly 100% as a result.