§ Lord Juddasked Her Majesty's Government:
How the quality and reliability of public service in the privatised railways compare with the nationalised railways which preceded them. [HL4697]
§ Lord Macdonald of TradestonBefore the recent problems with broken rails and flood damage, in general, the performance of the privatised train operating companies exceeded that of the nationalised British Rail. Overall punctuality has increased from 89.5 per cent in 1995–96 to 91.9 per cent in 1999–2000. Reliability has remained constant at 98.8 per cent. Since 1995–96, there has also been a 24 per cent increase in passenger journeys and there are 1,463 more trains running daily in the winter 2000 timetable compared with British Rail's winter 1995 timetable.