ScotRail is not providing a “poor service”, the Transport Minister has insisted ahead of a crunch parliamentary statement on the state of the country’s trains.
But Humza Yousaf admitted commuters are not receiving at an “acceptable standard” of provision after criticism of current rail operator Abellio.
ScotRail had to produce a performance improvement plan in September, at the request of Transport Scotland, after punctuality and reliability fell below standard.
A train breakdown in Edinburgh on Thursday caused widespread disruption for passengers, leading to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon apologising.
Mr Yousaf told BBC Radio Scotland: “It’s not a poor service, let’s just put this into perspective – 89.8, that’s almost 90 trains out of 100 are running to their contractually obligated time. That’s not to say there aren’t problems and there aren’t issues, there are.”
He said the situation was already improving and an annual measure of punctuality and reliability had slightly improved from 89.5 in the last eight weeks measured.
The SNP minster has said he wants to work with unions and other political parties to put together a public sector bid to run the railways, which could be ready for 2020 when a clause in the contract with Abellio would allow it to be broken.
Previewing his statement to Holyrood on Wednesday, he said: “What I’ll be saying is highlighting some of the 246 individual actions that are in the improvement plan. Services and performance have not been to the acceptable standard that I expect.
“The Scottish Government and my job is to make sure that passengers are put first and get the best possible service so I’ll be outlining some of those actions that have happened, that are happening and that are going to happen to improve performance on our railways.”
Scottish Labour’s transport spokesman Neil Bibby told the programme that his party wants to see a publicly owned people’s ScotRail.
He said: “There is significant investment going into the railways but there is a significant subsidy being given to Abellio to run our railways, but in addition to that Abellio are making a lot of profits which should be reinvested back into the railways.
“But unfortunately we will not see a public sector bid until at the earliest 2022 but in the meantime Humza Yousaf and the SNP Government need to focus on the here and now to deliver an improvement plan that actually makes matters better not worse and that they take the action to put in place a proper plan for an operator of last resort.”
