1. As with the previous year, 2023 continued to be a challenge for us with regards to fleet issues. The performance of our fleet of Class 180 trains which has been below the level we would expect. Whilst not all the cancellations have been the result of fleet reliability and availability, like other TOC’s issues have related to industrial action where we have had to implement a reduced timetable given that stations and infrastructure has not been available to us. Several have also been because of planned engineering works, as well as significant network disruption with issues such as cable theft, extreme weather, trespassers, fatalities and dewirements. We have also had a small number of cancellations related to traincrew.

With regards to our Class 180’s, we have had several defects that has meant that they have had to be taken out of service. The time that has taken to affect repairs has been hampered by several issues with the parts supply chain, capacity at Depots and volume of repairs. Additionally, we have had trains that have suffered damage due to external events, further compounding our overall availability of serviceable trains.

We have a fleet of 10 Class 180 trains and of which we require 7 trains to be in service daily to cover our timetable. In normal circumstances, considering our planned maintenance requirements, the size of our fleet would be sufficient to cover needs.

We continue to work closely with our train maintainer to resolve our position through our recovery plan which continues to be managed at a senior level across Grand Central, Arriva UK Trains and our maintenance supplier. Our position saw improvements from the summer of 2023 with a short-term lease of another class 180 and a longer-term lease of two Voyager 221’s. These additions have been both necessary and successful in improving our resilience for our passengers.

As with 2022, we continued to review some options to obtain additional trains as part of our long-term access rights strategy, with a fleet replacement programme a key focus and this continues into 2024.

In 2023 we improved our communications with passengers by sending service disruption emails, ensuring social media was as up to date as possible, utilising our website to the best of its capabilities to be transparent in fore-warning passengers of disruptions and alternative arrangement agreed.

2. We have had issues in 2023 with facilities onboard, such as the cleanliness of the services and toilet faults such as blockages. With some of the units being leased, they have not necessarily been in a condition that matches our units. However, the lease aspect prevented us from being able to refurbish them to our standards. We have worked hard with our cleaning and maintenance teams to make the services as up to standard as possible.

Both onboard Customer Relations staff regularly reported faults to the fleet team to support service recovery and management of the issues.

We have also had issues with onboard catering which has ranged from our proposition not matching customer expectation (comparison with other TOCs), at seat service not being available, issues with coffee machines as some examples. Due to the punctuality issues, First class has on occasion been de-classified on services which has meant that our First Class passengers have not enjoyed the service they had paid for.

We also experienced issues with our QR code ordering system, and we continue to work with our supplier to ensure issues remain minimal. We did offer cash only services, however for some passengers this was unacceptable option causing a rise in complaints.

At the end of 2023 we started our onboard improvements to upgrade our WiFi to improve passenger experience. Regrettably this hit unforeseen technical issues with the installation process and meant some services ran without WiFi, again leading to increased complaints.

3. We acknowledge that with service disruption and cancellations again in 2023, a large portion of alts were for passengers to use an alternative GC service. This resulted in numerous trains being at full and standing capacity. Passengers on the whole were largely unaware that their fares do not include seat reservations and they cannot be guaranteed or that trains can run with a safe standing capacity. Both concerns have been the focus for customer dissatisfaction in this area.

Volumes also peaked around strike days as we were again one of the few operators to run services. And again, around times of significant network disruption such as track flooding or from vandalism.

Number Of Complaints Closed