With ScotRail facing fines of £1.6m, MSP Jackie Baillie says the lines to Helensburgh Central and Dumbarton have been hit especially hard by delays and cancellations.
Operators Abellio have endured a nightmare start to May, with a series of faults on busy lines and news that Glasgow’s Queen Street station had been voted the worst in the UK.
The company also failed to hit nearly two-thirds of its targets in the final quarter of last year, attaining only 12 out of 34 benchmarks for trains and stations across Scotland.
M<s Baillie says figures show that passengers who travel on the Edinburgh – Helensburgh line are ‘facing a particularly bad service’.
She says Abellio met only five out of 17 targets at Helensburgh and Dumbarton and did not meet its target for train timetables and information at either Dumbarton Central or Helensburgh Central at all during this period.
The overall fines that the operator is expected to pay for 2017/18 now total more than £4.5m.
“These reports are truly shocking but come as no surprise,” said the Dumbarton MSP.
“ScotRail has left passengers having to pay a small fortune for delayed and overcrowded trains – and even when trains run there is no guarantee that they will stop at the stations they are supposed to.
“Reports of station skipping have become routine for passengers in my constituency with stops consistently being missed as the trains aim to meet their unmanageable arrival times at Helensburgh Central and Balloch.”
She added that improvements in performance had been promised by Alex Hynes, managing director of the ScotRail Alliance, and early signs were ‘promising’.
A ScotRail Alliance spokesperson said that in April 92% of trains across Scotland had met their target for punctuality, and the company was ‘the best performing large operator in the UK’.
She added: “Performance is not where we want it to be and as this year progresses, our customers will continue to see improvements as more of the 20 Donovan Performance Improvement Recommendations begin to support the improvement of the day-to-day running of services.
“We are building the best railway Scotland has ever had and service performance is a huge part of this delivery. Everyone at the ScotRail Alliance is working together to deliver these improvements.”
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