Timetables and performance

Our performance

We are passionate about making sure people’s Northern journeys are as good as they can be. We continually measure our service reliability and punctuality and work with Transport Focus to understand how satisfied customers are, and the key areas we need to focus on to improve customer satisfaction.  

Reliability and punctuality

We have targets for reliability and punctuality, and we report on our performance against these each month. Monthly performance reports are published on the performance section of our website.  
Find out more about our other passenger commitments in our passenger charter which is reviewed every year.  

Customer satisfaction

We measure customer satisfaction through the Net Promoter Score (NPS). This score measures customer advocacy, which is how likely customers are to recommend us. 

NPS is part of our in-house customer feedback programme which we introduced in 2021 and gathers several thousand customer surveys every four-week period. The programme allows us to monitor customer feedback in real time, down to station and route level.  

Along with NPS we look at customers’ satisfaction with several areas such as train cleanliness. This programme, along with complaints data, our service quality audits, social media, and industry sources such as Rail Delivery Group’s Wavelength tool, gives us the insight we need to drive up customer sentiment.  

We are listening to customers in new ways, with post-travel surveys being sent out to all of our digital customers via email generating real-time customer insight. And we have recruited seven and a half thousand customers into ‘Northerneers’, a panel that is working with us to help us understand our customers’ needs and priorities. 

Timetables

When our timetables are updated

Our timetables are updated generally twice a year in May and December, which is the same for other train operators. We also partially change timetables on some routes at different stages in the year. This accounts for things like leaf fall or major engineering work where there's likely to be heavy disruption. This is all coordinated into the National Rail Timetable. 

Occasionally we may have to make late notice changes to our published timetable. This may be due to operational reasons and improvement work, and we will keep customers informed when this is the case. Customers can view all our timetables online, including engineering work. We encourage customers to use the National Rail journey planner for the most accurate service information.

How timetables are developed

Developing rail timetables is a complex process and takes many months. Network Rail is responsible for coordinating and validating rail timetables for the whole country and their work starts 16 months in advance. You can find out more about how rail timetabling works on Network Rail's website.

Our timetable planning team plays an important role when developing the timetable for Northern services. It’s an enormous logistical exercise and they consider a wide range of factors, such as: 

• the likely demand for services
• the need for any changes to calling points or timings of services  
• type and length of train  
• the train crew to deliver the service  
• the need for trains to return to TrainCare Centres for maintenance, fuelling and servicing  
• making sure trains can work together with other train operating companies across our network and in busy station areas.

The team considers many other factors as they develop the timetable, before submitting it to Network Rail. 

For bigger timetable changes we will share draft timetables with stakeholders and the public before for feedback. This allows people who use the services regularly to let us know how the changes will affect them.