West Midlands Trains half-term performance not good enough - mayor
Performance of West Midlands Trains services was still not good enough during February half-term, according to the West Midlands Mayor.
Andy Street said services were largely "competent and reliable" during the school break but that there were still too many cancellations.
Half-term was the first real test of the under-fire operator since the Mayor held off on his threat to ask the Government to strip it of the franchise following its 2019 woes.
Mr Street said he had seen enough to be confident WMT should be given more time to make improvements but added March and the Easter holidays would be a crucial period for the company.
Timetable changes have been brought forward to next week to try and speed up improvements, though there has been criticism of the decision for some services to no longer stop at Black Country stations.
Mr Street said: “The February half-term was always going to be the first real test of whether West Midlands Trains have actually got a grip of their problems, as it was during the holiday season at the back end of last year when staff absence began to bite and WMT’s whole operation started to fall apart.
“This half-term was evidently not all plain sailing, but the firm largely managed to run a competent and reliable service throughout, and the improvement compared to the back end of last year was clear for all to see.
“However, even taking the poor weather into consideration, there were still too many cancellations, and I do not believe the reliability figure was high enough.
“I therefore expect to see a significant improvement in March, and with the Easter holidays now fast approaching I expect WMT to plan accordingly to make sure passengers can receive a reliable service with no disruption.
“As I made clear to Mr Edwards yesterday, WMT are far from out of special measures in my eyes. Under his leadership they have shown enough signs of improvement to be allowed to continue running the West Midlands franchise, but if they begin to slip back into their old ways then I will have no hesitation in demanding the DfT take the franchise away.”
Mayoral election rival Liam Byrne has accused Mr Street of being too soft on WMT, insisting the poor performance cannot be allowed to continue.
