One in ten train disruptions caused by staff shortages

Around one in 10 delays and cancellations on Britain's railways were caused by shortages of staff, new data from the Office of Rail and Road revealed on Thursday.

The figures showed there were 1.93m 'disruptions' between April 1, 2013 and December 12, 2015. A lack of staff was blamed for 9.42% of these.

Commuters in suburban London suffered the most, with Govia Thameslink Railway being the worst-affected operator. The company - a joint venture between listed firm Go-Ahead and French multinational Keolis - operates the Thameslink, Great Northern, Southern and Gatwick Express services.

It experienced 62,000 staff shortage incidents during the period, accounting for 13.6% of its cancellations and delays.

The winner, with the lowest proportion of delays caused by staff shortages, was Virgin Trains East Coast, at 2.6%, followed by Virgin Trains West Coast, at 3.7%.

For much of the period, however, the East Coast franchise was not operated by Virgin, but by the government's Directly Operated Railways before being re-privatised on 1 March 2015.

The Department for Transport claimed it closely watched the number of delays and cancellations, and held operators to account if too many were disrupted by staff shortages - though it did not define how many disruptions that was.

A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operating companies and Network Rail, told the London Evening Standard that being unable to run a journey because a member of staff wasn't available was an occasional occurrence.

"Disruption to services, for whatever reason, means that train crews can be displaced and physically in the wrong place to crew a scheduled train. Other reasons, including sickness and annual leave, also have an impact," the unnamed spokesman told the newspaper.