Tyne and Wear Metro 'must improve services' says North East mayor Kim McGuinness
The Tyne and Wear Metro must improve its services and release clear plans for the introduction of its new train fleet, the North East mayor has said.
Kim McGuinness has demanded a boost in performance from the rail service, with passengers having been plagued by delays and cancellations over recent years – a trend largely blamed on the unreliability of the dilapidated carriages that have served the network for more than 40 years.
The Metro slumped to a historic low last year when just 61% of its trains arrived on time in the four weeks to December 9, the worst figure since the publicly-owned system opened in 1980, though the situation has improved since and punctuality now stands at 81%.
In a letter to Nexus managing director Cathy Massarella on Thursday, Ms McGuinness set out an expectation for the Metro to produce “world-class levels of performance” by the time of the next mayoral election in 2028.
The Labour mayor added: “The main problem is undoubtedly the old trains, which are now many years past their design life. Whatever the statistics say, the perception of many passengers is that the Metro too often lets them down.
“Metro’s passengers are telling me that they too want to know and see more about what is being done to fix problems and to make the service better.”
Nexus served Stadler, which is building the new Metro fleet but is now also responsible for maintaining the existing trains, with a remedial notice in 2023 due to a shortage of available trains when almost three-quarters of the stock was broken.
Extra peak-time Metro commuter services were also scrapped last year because of a lack of working trains to fulfil the timetable.
It is hoped a £362 million fleet of new trains will transform the Metro’s performance – with the Swiss-made models promising to be more reliable and boast modern features like air conditioning.
However, their arrival has suffered multiple setbacks and it remains unclear when they will come into service.
The first of the new fleet was meant to enter passenger service in the summer of 2023, but none have yet.
They were already months behind schedule when a problem with their traction system emerged this January, which a fix has since been found for, with Nexus now saying that they aim to get a new train into use by the end of 2024 but remaining reluctant to publicly give a more specific timescale.
Ms McGuinness also told Nexus to produce more detail on the rollout of the new fleet.
She has asked Nexus to produce:
- A recovery plan to increase the number of working Metro trains;- A “clear action plan” to deal with the challenging of the autumn and winter months, when leaves and colder weather can pose problems;- A set of customer information standards telling passengers what information they can expect to be given, and where, during periods of disruption;- Milestones for the entry into service of the new fleet and its “key risks”;- A new dashboard with “simple” facts about the Metro – including punctuality and reliability, causes of delays and cancellations, and customer satisfaction.
The Metro now falls under the remit of the North East Combined Authority (NECA) following the mayoral election held in May and Ms McGuinness has made extending the network to Washington one of her key pledges.
Ms Massarella admitted that the Metro’s performance “has not been good enough” and that it “should be offering a better service for our customers”.
She added: “We have already been working up detailed plans to not only improve the availability of existing trains but also to prepare for the autumn and winter seasons and we will share these with the Mayor. We will also provide an overview of our customer information standards that outline what communication customers can expect during different levels of service as well as how we will respond operationally.
“Finally, we will update on the processes and critical milestones we need to reach to introduce the new fleet of trains into customer service. This is a large and extremely complex project for Nexus.
"We are committed to providing clear and accessible project information to both customers and stakeholders to help manage expectations, explaining not only the challenges we face, but also the progress that is made.
“A regular format of briefings are now in place. We will be using these to provide the mayor with project updates as well as key data to ensure she is fully appraised on progress and can ask questions about performance.”
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