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The North West of England has recorded the highest rate of canceled rail stops in Britain.
Manchester Victoria has been Britain's busiest station in terms of cancellations so far this year.
Around one in 10 of 10,506 scheduled stops was canceled between January and November 2024, according to National Rail figures collected by rail data site On Time Trains.
This contributed to the North West of England being the region with the highest rate of canceled rail stops across Britain, at 6.5%, with 611,047 cancellations.
The government has said it is determined to deliver the biggest overhaul of the railways in a generation, bringing services back into public ownership for reinvestment.
Meher, 22, a recent graduate from Bolton, has experienced regular cancellations at Manchester Victoria.
She said that as a student at Preston she had probably missed hundreds of hours of university because of train cancellations.
“I think a lot of the time we were more stressed about our trains than our jobs,” she said. “It was mostly in the evening when we came back, so we came back later than planned and missed a lot of the mosque.”
Meher said canceled trains meant returning home in the dark more often, adding: “If it's darker, then it's much worse and you're alone too. It impacts your safety.”
Daniel said train cancellations affected his university experience
Daniel, 19, who also travels to university via Manchester Victoria, said he usually aims to arrive an hour early in anticipation of cancellations disrupting his journey.
Although living at home has allowed him to save money, he said relying on trains has proven stressful.
“A lot of my friends live on campus and it’s a lot easier for them, but I wouldn’t want to pay for housing,” he said.
More than three million train stops in Britain were canceled between January and November this year, 3.8% of the nearly 83 million planned.
This breaks down to a cancellation rate of 3.9% in England and Wales and 2.9% in Scotland.
The BBC analysis calculated the percentage of scheduled stops with a canceled arrival and/or departure using National Rail data collected by On Time Trains.
This differs from the Office of Rail and Road's (ORR) analysis of cancellations, which takes into account full and partial cancellations, planned timetable changes, strikes and reductions in workforce.
Amber, 21, travels regularly from Liverpool Lime Street but said her train is canceled around 25% of the time.
“It’s annoying that the minimum service is not respected,” she said. “This would be unheard of in the South.
“Cities in the North must face it, because there is no other choice.”
Liverpool Lime Street had the 11th highest cancellation rate of any station in Britain, with 12,062 trains (5.9%) canceled between January 1 and November 30 this year.
Of the 100 UK stations ranked busiest by ORR, three of the five stations most affected by cancellations were in Manchester: Manchester Victoria (9.5%), Manchester Oxford Road (8.1%) and Manchester Piccadilly (6.7%).
In England, the regions with the worst overall cancellation rates were the North West at 6.5%, followed by the South West at 4.8% and the North East at 4.6%.
Three of the five regions in Britain with cancellation rates lower than the overall national rate were in the south or east of England.
Campaign for better transport
Michael Solomon Williams of the Campaign for Better Transport said the rail network needed to be improved.
Michael Solomon Williams, of the transport charity Campaign for Better Transport, said passengers in the North had “suffered for too long”, with “much more” investment being made in the South.
“There has been a case of economic and social inequality that is directly linked to transport inequality for several years,” he said.
“We need to invest more in the north than in the south to rebalance things.”
Network Rail operates 20 of Britain's busiest and largest stations. It rents the rest to training operating companies who manage them but are not responsible for the punctuality of other operators using the stations.
Rail Delivery Group, which represents National Rail and train operators, said cancellations could be caused by weather, strike action, trespassing and track, train or signaling faults.
He said this was not acceptable and everyone was working hard to ensure train services were reliable and on time.
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Manchester Victoria and Manchester Oxford Road were number one and second for cancellations among Britain's busiest stations
Northern, which runs Manchester Victoria and Manchester Oxford Road stations, said it had worked hard to resolve train crew availability issues and improve reliability.
He said an agreement on rest time had been reached with drivers and he would continue to work with the RMT union to find a “new way forward” after drivers recently rejected a job offer of Sunday.
The RMT said it was looking to continue negotiations with the company.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4's Today program she was concerned about the train cancellation figures. She said: “I am not happy with Northern Rail’s performance at the moment.”
She added that the problem with Northern “is related to the availability of the train crew specifically on Sundays.”
“One of the things we've had to do there as we work through this issue with the union and the local workers is we've decided to reduce schedules slightly to improve reliability.”
She said in the new year the government would look at how to reduce the use of rest days.
Network Rail, which runs Manchester Piccadilly station but does not run train services, said its job was to “help keep passengers safe when they travel”.
She said she understood how frustrating the disruptions were for passengers and was helping train operators at the station provide a reliable service.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Passengers are disappointed by poor services, which is why we are committed to delivering the biggest overhaul of the railways in a generation. »
They said returning services to public ownership would put passengers at the heart and allow the government to reinvest in the railways, while holding operators to account.
