The upward trend of Manchester Metrolink punctuality over the past few periods has been reversed with a full percentage point decrease in the latest stats released for the period between 16th September and 13th October. A still creditable 90.4% of all trams departed less than two minutes late in this period – down from 91.4% in the August-September period. Reliability remained at the same level for the second period in a row.
The fall in punctuality has been put down to a few disruptive incidents that were “third party” related including a storm which saw a tree fall adjacent to the track at Withington and a RTC at Langworthy on 2nd October. There were also various points and signalling failures during the period including at St Werburgh’s Road on 27th September, Rochdale Town Centre on 1st October and Deansgate-Castlefield on 5th October.
The highest performing route was Altrincham (95.2%) with the Eccles line seeing the worse punctuality figures at 88%.
Meanwhile on the reliability front (that’s the percentage of planned miles which actually operated) all routes were around the same mark ranging from the low of 98.9% on the Ashton-under-Lyne line to the high of 99.8% on the Bury route.
As temperatures start to fall, KeolisAmey Metrolink are also starting to ramp up their winterisation strategy. This has seen the start of overnight ice-breaker trams running to try and avoid situations of early morning service disruption because of ice on the overhead. The lead up to Christmas will also see additional double trams introduced to aid capacity for the shopping rush.
Period 7’s full stats are:
Punctuality
Overall – 90.4% (previous period 91.4%)
Airport – 88.2%(87.7%)
Altrincham – 95.2% (95.1%)
Ashton-under-Lyne – 92.5% (92.2%)
Bury – 88.4% (88.2%)
East Didsbury – 92.6% (96.6%)
Eccles – 88% (92.4%)
Oldham & Rochdale – 88.2% (87.5%)
Reliability
Overall – 99.6% (previous period 99.6%)
Airport – 99.7% (99.6%)
Altrincham – 99.7% (99.6%)
Ashton-under-Lyne – 98.9% (98.8%)
Bury – 99.8% (99.7%)
East Didsbury – 99.4% (99.6%)
Eccles – 99.3% (99.4%)
Oldham & Rochdale – 99.7% (99.6%)
* The full stats are available on the TfGM website.