The Office of Rail and Road presents the statistics as “freight cancellations and delays.” Yet, the rail freight sector could benefit from improvements. A more optimistic perspective could be argued for.
The UK government is mandating a significantly greater share of freight be moved by rail. Perhaps the government’s own appointed agency could play a greater role in promoting the sector’s reliability. The latest figures show steady improvement.
Just one in fifty freight cancellations
In the latest quarterly analysis by the ORR, rail freight reliability, as measured by Freight Cancellations and Lateness (FCaL), was 9.7% between October and December 2024. This was 2.5 percentage points lower (i.e., better) than the same quarter the previous year. The moving annual average (the latest twelve months) stood at 8.8% at the end of December 2024.
The more contentious measure – freight cancellations – stood at 1.8% in the latest quarter. According to the ORR, that was 1.1 percentage points better when compared with the same quarter the previous year. The moving annual average for the twelve months to the end of December 2024 was 1.5%. Put just a little more positively, that’s more than 98 per cent of freight trains running as planned. Over nine in every ten freight trains ran to schedule. Beat that, Northern Trains.
Comparable road statistics not available
The question of freight train punctuality was raised at the recent “Demystifying Rail Freight” workshop held at Waterloo Station. It was debated that the rail freight sector holds itself to a very high standard of punctuality. Necessarily so, given that the railway runs to a strict timetable.
The London venue was appropriate. Road traffic issues in the capital often makes precise scheduling difficult. Rail is far less tolerable of the ‘delivery window’ model that prevails in the road haulage sector. That prompted debate over how rail freight lays itself bare to scheduling scrutiny in a way that the road sector is not. Comparable statistics for road delays are not compiled in the same way. Government figures concentrate on planned works and alternative routes.
Advertise a better picture
Long running advertising campaigns have been commissioned (ever since the pandemic) to encourage passengers back onto the UK railways. The “nothing beats being there” campaign has played a part in returning figures to almost pre-2020 levels. The pattern of usage has however significantly changed.
It may not be quite as relevant to the general public, but there has been no comparable campaign for rail freight. Network Rail and the HS2 high speed rail project have both produced video content to highlight the sector (see above). These though are not pushed out to a general audience with the same vigour as teh passenger message.
Instead, mainstream media is only likely to interact with the sector when something goes wrong. The ubiquitous “freight train blocking commuters” travel report is as close as the morning radio listener gets to the world of intermodal and aggregate workings. Perhaps those morning show listeners might feel better disposed to the sector if they knew that every time they see a freight train stopped, there are 49 others on the move, doing that whole delivering the goods thing.