We’re probably being a broken record here but the latest performance statistics released for the Tyne and Wear Metro show that once again performance has fallen – that’s both in comparison with the previous four weeks as well as the same period 12 months earlier.
This time the poster at stations covers the four weeks from 4th February to 2nd March 2024. In that period 72% were recorded as arriving on time (3 minutes later or 30 seconds earlier than scheduled). This is a 7% fall from the previous period (when it was at 79%) and is also 5% down from where we were in 2023 (77%).
The poster once again assures passengers that “We understand that unplanned service changes can be frustrating for our customers. We are working hard to get the best possible performance from our current fleet of trains, investing in further maintenance and increasing winter resilience. We know things need to be better, however, Metro is still a service customers can rely on.”
It also gives key service facts which claim that on average, four out of five trains are on time (it doesn’t say how long a period that is covering as the percentages provided higher up the same poster rather contradict that!) and that on average nine out of ten trains run each day. There has also been a 13.5% increase in passengers in the last year and 100,000 travel each day.
The wait goes on for the new trains to head through successful testing and until that happens it looks very unlikely that there will be a significant improvement in the service performance.