Fewer freight trains in the UK reached their destination on time during the summer months of 2017 compared to the previous year, according to official figures. The Office for Rail and Road says 94.4 per cent of services arrived on time, down 0.4 per cent year-on-year.

The latest figures apply to July, August and September this year and are recorded as the Freight Delivery Metric (FDM), which is the percentage of freight trains that arrive at their destination within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time.

Freight Delivery Metric

Freight services are only considered to have ‘failed’ FDM if the delay has been as a result of infrastructure work carried out by Network Rail. The moving annual average (MAA) reflects the proportion of trains that met FDM in the past year, and this currently stands at 94.1 per cent, the same as in 2016/2017.