Northern responds to Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region mayors

David Brown, Managing Director at Northern said: "We agree the North deserves the best possible rail service and are working hard to improve the performance and reliability for customers.

"The unacceptable disruption following the May 2018 timetable change was caused by delays in infrastructure projects out of our control. We have apologised to our customers for the pain this caused. We have seen two successful timetable changes since then, introducing many more new services.

 "Since last year, we have made a large number of improvements for customers – including better punctuality, investment in new and refurbished trains, over 2,000 new services and hundreds more people employed to help customers.

"These improvements are still a work in progress – but we are making things better for our customers. We want and expect things to continue to improve.” 

NORTHERN FACTS

• Almost 9 out of 10 Northern services are now arriving within five minutes of their scheduled time. Cancellations are dramatically down since May 2018
• Since the start of our franchise in 2016, we are now running some 2,000 extra train services per week
• We are starting to introduce 101 brand new trains from this summer and refurbishing the rest of our fleet to a very high standard
• As we renew our fleet, Pacers will begin to retire from service, significantly improving service quality for customers
• We are working constructively and positively with colleagues to find solutions to improving performance on Sundays
• We have seen a significant fall in complaints
• We are now leaders in new, flexible Smart Ticketing
• We have hired hundreds of extra people since our franchise began – and are adding more customer facing roles