§ Lord Gainfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
What progress has been achieved in improving the quality of service on the London, Tilbury and Southend line.
The Earl of CaithnessWork on the £50 million resignalling project for the line is progressing, with the survey and design phase now virtually complete. BR believe this project to be the key to improving the reliability of the line.
The rolling stock withdrawn for checking and repair is expected to be fully introduced by the end of November, reducing cancellations and restoring capacity. A new train washing machine has been installed and will soon be operational.
Closed circuit TV systems have recently been installed at six of the most heavily used car parks on the line to improve security.
A passenger information system (called PRIDE) was installed earlier this year. It uses state of the art satellite communications to transmit messages from the information centre at Southend to the individual PRIDE installations on LT & S stations.
For the year so far, the line has exceeded its Passenger's Charter targets for both peak punctuality and reliability. Punctuality has been particularly good at 90.3 per cent.—l2 per cent. higher than the average achieved during 1991.