Further improvement in rail punctuality

Network Rail has published the national rail punctuality data for the four weeks ended 19 September 2009, which reveals that nationally that 93.6 per cent of trains arrived ‘on time’ (which can include delays of less than five or ten minutes, dependent on type of service) – the punctuality data for the five train operating companies serving the South West of England for this four week period was as follows:-

• Arriva CrossCountry: 91.5 per cent (16th out of 19)
• Arriva Trains Wales: 95.9 per cent (2nd out of 19)
• First Great Western: 94.1 per cent (8th out of 19)
• London Midland: 90.7 per cent (17th out of 19)
• South West Trains: 95.6 per cent (5th out of 19)

The punctuality data for the five train operating companies serving the South West of England for the year ended 19 September 2009 was as follows:-

• Arriva CrossCountry: 90.6 per cent (14th out of 19)
• Arriva Trains Wales: 94.3 per cent (4th out of 19)
• First Great Western: 92.1 per cent (7th out of 19)
• London Midland: 87.4 per cent (18th out of 19)
• South West Trains: 93.8 per cent (5th out of 19)

‘Modal agnosticism’ dead

Lord Adonis, the Secretary of State for Transport, has pledged his full support in a speech for the ‘green’ transport agenda and has confirmed the ‘death’ of the ‘modal agnosticism’ advocated by the Government’s former transport adviser, Sir Rod Eddington – Lord Adonis stated that the ‘Government must plan for a fundamental change in the way in which people travel to ensure that the challenging carbon emission reduction targets are achieved’.

No review of transport governance for Greater Bristol

The West of England Partnership (comprising councillors from the four unitary authorities of Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire) has not supported a recommendation from officers for a review, costing approximately one hundred thousand pounds, of transport governance in the conurbation.

Network Rail safety campaign

Network Rail has launched a new advertising campaign, ‘Would it kill you to wait?’, to warn people of the dangers of using ungated level crossings. One of the campaign advertisements features an incident captured on closed circuit television at Wareham, Dorset where a mother recklessly pushes a pram over a railway crossing right in front of a moving train – other pedestrians, who were waiting patiently to cross after the train had passed, saw the woman have to run to avoid been hit by the train!

Best practice guide for South West local transport plans

The Commission for Rural Communities has published case studies on rural accessibility planning best practice with the objective of influencing the third round of local transport plans currently been prepared by the strategic transport authorities (county and unitary councils) in the South West – the case studies were prepared for the Commission by the consultancy, Integrated Transport Planning..

People

Mark Howarth, the managing director of Western Greyhound, has been elected as the President of the Omnibus Society for 2010.

And finally,

The Department for Transport (DfT) has estimated that if all rail journeys were made using smartcards, there would be an annual benefit of thirty-two million pounds as passengers would spend less time passing through ticket gates – this DfT estimate is based on the calculation that it takes on average just two seconds to pass through a ticket gate using a smartcard, compared to four seconds for customers with paper tickets!