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Streaking into the London landscape in a blur of white and purple, the Elizabeth line has taken the capital by storm. For the first time ever Londoners can get across the capital laterally in one fell swoop from Abbey Wood in the south east, to Reading in the west. The depths of south east London are now some of the most connected areas of the city. It has blisteringly cold air con and stations that look like they’re straight from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Heck, the line is even going to be running through the night between this weekend to help people join The Queue to pay their respects to The Queen as she lies-in-state in Westminster Hall.
In short, the Elizabeth line seems to have answered all our public transport woes (if you live within walking distance to it, that is). And now we have hard figures to back up just how great it appears to be.
According to new numbers released by the Office of Rail and Road, the Elizabeth line has become the most punctual train in the entire country, just over three months since it opened officially on May 24.
The quarterly figures released this week show that 88.1% of Elizabeth trains were on time between April and June – the top performance of all 24 UK rail operators. The figures included the performance of TfL Rail as the services on its western and eastern branches were running before its central section opened. Only 1.8 per cent of the 60,573 TfL Rail or Elizabeth line trains due to run over the three months had to be cancelled.
Its success is probably a huge relief. The Elizabeth line was, after all, 13 years in the making and cost a hefty £19 billion. And when you compare it to other UK rail services, it’s not really a surprise as to why pipped other rail services to the top spot.
Only a measly 46.5 per cent of Avanti West Coast’s trains arrived on time over the same period. East Midlands Railway didn’t fare much better with 58 per cent of its services running on time. In fact, only four train services in the country could boast that 80 per cent or more of their train services were on time – Elizabeth Line, Heathrow Express, Greater Anglia and c2c.
Is this a good time to mention that in Japan if a train is five minutes late or more, passengers get a certificate to show to their boss as an explanation for being late? Probably not, but we can dream.
Want to learn more? Here’s everything you could possibly wish to know about the Elizabeth line.