Train punctuality has been rising steadily under Network Rail recently and over 1.2bn passengers enjoyed 90.5% of their trains arriving on time. This has risen from a poor 78.6% in 2002. This means that most trains now arrive within 5 minutes of the time stated in the timetable. The advantage for the humble traveller is that it makes it easier to plan journeys especially where a change of train needs to be made partway through the trip.

Five operators made some big improvements on their punctuality levels in April

National Express East Coast achieved 90.3% up from 84.2%
East midlands Trains achieved 94.3% up from 90.8%
First Great Western achieved 93.7% up from 90.6%
SouthEastern achieved 94.7% up from 92.5%
South West Trains achieved 94.8% up from 92.7%

With Virgin Trains falling to 80.3% from a previous 85.4% due to the engineering works on the West coast Main Line


Overall though since 2004 the picture looks good with punctuality rising steadily for all the operators.

Operator	Previous	2009
First Transpennine Express	74.60%	90.30%
National Express East Anglia	88.80%	90.50%
Northern Rail	84.60%	89.80%
First Great Western	83.20%	90.50%
First Capital Connect	86.40%	91.10%
Crosscountry	78.00%	90.10%
London Midland	76.40%	86.50%
London Overground	84.50%	92.30%
East Midlands Trains	78.90%	89.30%
First Scotrail	83.10%	90.60%
Merseyrail	94.20%	95.00%
Virgin Trains	72.10%	80.00%
Arriva Trains Wales	80.20%	93.10%
Chiltern	92.50%	95.20%
c2c Rail	93.20%	95.30%
Southeastern	84.20%	90.00%
Southern	81.80%	89.50%
Stagecoach South Western	82.10%	93.10%
National Express East Coast	77.50%	86.90%

Currently c2c is the most punctual operator in Britain.

When looking at these figures it is worth considering that 24,000 trains are run every day in Britain, and thats more than in most European countries including France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Portugal, and Norway.