Increasing number of TGV rail delays
SNCF wants 90% of services to arrive on time this year - and is changing its definition of 'on time' to help
FRENCH national rail operator SNCF has announced it is changing its definition of "on time" in a bid to improve this year's punctuality stats.
Almost one in five long-distance train TGV services failed to arrive at their destination within five minutes of the scheduled time in 2009, new figures have revealed.
The latest punctuality data shows 18.8% of TGVs and Corail trains reached their destination late - up from 17.4% in the previous year and 15.5% in 2005.
The SNCF has set a target of 90% punctuality on all of its routes this year - but it is changing the way it measures punctuality to help reach this figure.
Services of between 90 minutes and three-and-a-half hours must arrive within 10 minutes, and long-distance TGVs 15 minutes, up from five minutes at present.
Local TER (train express régional) services with a journey time of less than 90 minutes will still be measured according to the old system - where "on time" means no more than five minutes late.
TERs improved their performance in 2009 - with 91.4% arriving on time compared with 90.7% last year.
Brittany and Alsace scored more than 95% punctuality for its TER services. The Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrénées were among the worst-performing regions.
The SNCF said about a third of last year's delays were due to internal problems such as staff shortages or defective trains. Most of the disruptions were blamed on an increased amount of renovation work on the ageing network, which often requires speed restrictions to be put in place.
More work is on the way: with 900km of improvement works scheduled between now and 2013, as the French rail network is opened up to competition for the first time.
On Friday, EDF parent company Veolia confirmed it was planning to start running trains to compete with the SNCF. Italian operator Trenitalia is also interested.
Overshoot
The latest set of punctuality figures came out on the same day that passengers on a TGV from Paris to Brest were delayed by up to an hour and a half after the driver forgot to stop at Le Mans.
Passengers wanting to alight there finally managed to get off the train in Laval in the Mayenne and taken back to Le Mans by coach.
The SNCF said the driver must have confused the day's timetable with that of another day. It said: "It was a rare human error which happens less than once a year."
