Melbourne’s trams were on-time at their final destination just 65.2% of the time in the month of March, as punctuality figures on the Yarra Trams network dropped more than eight percentage points below the 12-month average.
The March figure of 65.2% on-time services was even lower than the February figure of 66.2%, which was already the lowest figure recorded in the past 12 months, as Rail Express reported last month.
As well as the poor ‘on-time’ figure for trams at their final destination, the ‘on-time’ figure for trams along the duration of their trip also reached a 12-month low in March.
Trams were ‘on-time’ throughout their journey just 78.0% of the time on the Yarra Trams network. This was a new 12-month low, following the low set in February of just 78.9%.
Yarra Trams put the poor February results down to “a high number of special events, major tram improvement projects, traffic congestion and third party incidents.”
Now the on-time figure has worsened, Public Transport Victoria chief executive Mark Wild had this to say: “Yarra Trams had a very busy month requiring hundreds of extra trams to move large crowds to the Grand Prix, the Cricket World Cup, the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show and other special events.”
Wild, however, said it was “encouraging” that the operator still ran 98.9% of scheduled services during the month of March, despite the events.
The March scheduled service figure was up slightly on the February figure of 98.7%, but was still lower than the 12-month average of 99.1%.
Elsewhere, Melbourne’s Metro trains were on-time at their final destination just 92.1% of the time in March – the lowest figure since April last year.
“We are working closely with Metro to ensure that performance on metropolitan trains continues to improve, and continues to trend upwards over the long term, with a particular focus on continuing to reduce station skipping,” Wild said.