PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
West Midlands Rail Franchise (19 December 2019)

The Department and West Midlands Rail Executive (WMRE) regularly monitor train service performance across the entire Franchise, and meet frequently with West Midlands Trains to support their plans for making services better and hold them to account when things go wrong. Since the timetable change, there has been a 3.89% (38.93% to 35.04%) reduction in right time arrivals in the Great Malvern and Malvern Link area, which is very disappointing. Since April 2019, a new ‘On Time’ performance measure was introduced. This new, tougher measure looks at the performance at every station along the route – not just whether trains reach their destination on time. This shows a collective commitment by industry and Government to provide a service on which passengers can rely.

In response to crowding issues, West Midlands Trains have added extra carriages to the 0647, 0736, 0807, and 0836 departures from Great Malvern, and the 1550 service from Birmingham New Street to Hereford. West Midlands Trains will also retain the Class 153 units until the delivery of their new trains later in 2020. These carriages will provide extra capacity for customers at Great Malvern station. West Midlands Trains has advised us they intend to recruit additional traincrew to make service delivery more robust.