Abellio UK operates the national railway in Scotland, delivering intercity, regional and suburban rail services across the Scottish national rail network. We have built an alliance between ScotRail and Network Rail. We have a joint workforce helping deliver a world class service for passengers. We will operate the franchise for a period of ten years until 2025, with a seven-year break clause exercisable at year five. In 2016 ScotRail saw some challenges around delivering its performance targets due to a period of industrial action over the proposed introduction of DCO coupled with major engineering works across the network. The industrial dispute was resolved following lengthy negotiations with the unions and our client in the region. In 2017 there has been a marked improvement. Figures show that, for the 12 months to 6 January 2018, 90.4 per cent of ScotRail trains met their PPM performance target. While ScotRail is the best performing large operator in the UK, the performance falls below the improvement plan target of 90.8 per cent for the past twelve months set by the Scottish Government. As a result, the ScotRail Alliance will now undertake a full review of its performance and produce a plan to further improve the service its customers receive.
Customer satisfaction with ScotRail has improved in the past year according to the NRPS survey, finding that 85% of ScotRail customers are satisfied with the operator. This is an increase from 83% at the same point last year.
The new fleet programme has seen some delays due to a number of factors, and the first trains will be introduced into service in 2018. The trains will be leased.