Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has written to the Interim Managing Directors of CrossCountry, threatening to “take further action” regarding “serious concerns” over the operator’s performance.
Data from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) published in May revealed that just 47.2% of CrossCountry services between April 2023 and March 2024 arrived on time, compared with a 67.6% average across all operators.
Meanwhile, 8.4% of its services over the same period were cancelled, compared to an industry average of 3.8%.
CrossCountry announced a reduced timetable for the three-month period of 10th August to 9th November, although claims that it will still offer 97% of its normal daily number of seats.
Ms Haigh said she had “little choice to approve” the proposal.
The Transport Secretary said:
“I do not find this level of service provision acceptable, nor do I find a three-month reduced timetable to be a satisfactory response.
“Put simply, the only reason I accepted your proposal was to give passengers more certainty on which services will run. I did so on the condition that capacity will be increased on those which will operate, and that you will take steps to reduce the backlog of driver training, and demonstrate that you are moving towards better reliability.”
Ms Haigh also required the operator to agree a Remedial Plan formally contractualising its plan to improve services, and said she would “not hesitate to take further action” should the Plan not be delivered.
Cross Country was awarded a new long-term contract last year by the old Conservative Government, which began on 15th October. The contract has a core term of four years and a maximum of eight, although from October 2027 the Transport Secretary can terminate the contract at any time with three months’ notice.
A CrossCountry spokesperson said: “We acknowledge that our service has fallen below the standards our passengers should expect from us. All too frequently, our passengers have been inconvenienced by on-the-day cancellations, which results in poor quality and reliability of service.
“This is why we have taken proactive action to deliver the change needed to provide a better service for our customers. We believe that our robust plan is the quickest way to improve our performance and provide a more resilient service.
“By the end of the temporary timetable, we will have more fully trained drivers who can work across the network. We will also have reduced our training backlog, providing a more reliable service for customers with fewer cancellations.
“We apologise for the inconvenience our temporary timetable causes our customers. We have kept changes to a minimum, and where possible we have redeployed trains to provide more seats and other services to deliver at the highest capacity possible. As a result, 97% of our normal daily number of seats will still operate while the temporary timetable is in operation.”
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