The rail franchise agreement includes one of the most robust and extensive performance regimes in the UK.

Good performance information is crucial in order to -

• Drive continuous improvement
• Measure progress against policy priorities
• Improve transparency

First ScotRail have performance indicators that measure train performance in terms of -

• Punctuality
  Measuring the proportion of services that run on time, at a margin of 0-5 minutes or 0-10 minutes, depending on the service
• Reliability
  Measuring the proportion of services that actually run

The franchise agreement requires a 2% improvement in performance, year on year. First ScotRail is outperforming this but we recognise that more needs to be done to improve rail performance.

2004-05

• 93% of ScotRail trains arrived on time or were under ten minutes late
• 2.1% arrived 20 or more minutes late
• 1.1% were cancelled
• 83.1% of ScotRail trains arrived 'on time'
• 77.8% of Virgin Cross Country trains arrived 'on time'
• 72.1% of Virgin West Coast trains arrived 'on time'

'On time' is defined as arriving at the final destination under five minutes late for regional operator services and under ten minutes late for long-distance operator services. These punctuality statistics refer to all trains run by each operator, not just Scottish services.

You can find more summaries of punctuality and reliability statistics on the First ScotRail website.

Local Output Commitment

Network Rail and First ScotRail are both under a Local Output Commitment agreement. This is essentially a contractual level of services that Network Rail offers the First ScotRail franchise.

Targets are set in order to monitor operational performance in terms of delay and cancellations, and the quality of the network. The main method of performance measuring is to determine how many minutes of delay are attributable to Network Rail in any given year. Failure to meet targets result in compensation payments being paid by Network Rail.