Commuters on the least reliable lines experience more than three times as many delays and cancellations than those with the city’s best performing services.
under its current contract with Metro. It includes a 92 per cent punctuality target, so less than 8 per cent of trains can be delayed, and a 98.5 per cent reliability target, meaning less than 1.5 per cent of trains can be cancelled, skip stations or run short.
The Glen Waverley line also had the least outright cancellations at 0.6 per cent. Almost four times as many trains were cancelled on the Pakenham line and more than double on the Frankston and Werribee lines. A Metro spokesman said illegal activity such as trespassing, vandalism and graffiti disrupted 1635 services in August alone and was the biggest factor hurting its performance, causing more than one-third of delays and cancellations.
A Victorian Auditor-General’s Office report released in March this year found that in November 2022, “external factors” such as weather, vandalism and police operations caused about 3 per cent of trains to be delayed. Infrastructure failures caused 2 per cent and passenger overcrowding caused 1.5 per cent, the report said.