BRITAIN’S only publicly run train franchise is outperforming its private competitors in both punctuality and customer satisfaction, putting pressure on the Government to keep it in the public sector.

South Eastern Trains (SET), which operates from across Kent into four London termini, has just marked its first year under the direct control of the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA).

The previous operator, Connex, was sacked for financial incompetence.

The Government is under pressure from trade unions and Labour backbenchers to keep the franchise under public control to provide a benchmark against which the performance of private train companies can be compared. More than 100 Labour MPs have signed a motion opposing plans to hand the franchise back to the private sector next autumn.

Official punctuality figures show that SET is not only performing much better than Connex, but that it is also well ahead of its two key rivals in southern England, Southern and South West Trains.

In the three months from April to June, SET ran 86.5 per cent of trains on time. In the same period last year, Connex achieved 84.2 per cent.

Punctuality at Southern declined year-on-year to only 81.8 per cent, while South West Trains improved marginally to 78.2 per cent. SET has also recorded a steep fall in the number of complaints from passengers since returning to public control.

In Connex’s last 12 months in charge, the French company received 23,800 complaints. In the past 12 months, SET has received only 16,700. Train reliability is also improving rapidly at SET, with the average distance between breakdowns of its new Electrostar fleet doubling to 15,000 miles.

Yet the SRA is under pressure from the Government not to publicise its success in operating the franchise. Ministers fear that they would face demands to re-nationalise all train companies if it became widely known that SET was performing well in the public sector.

The Government has already been placed in the awkward position of having to reject an overwhelming vote at the Labour Party conference in favour of restoring full public control over the railways.

Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, angered SET managers this week by trying to play down their achievement when he was questioned in the House of Commons. He said: “The performance of South Eastern Trains is not as good as the average for the South East as a whole. There has been an improvement, but that is largely due to what Network Rail has done in reducing track delays.”

SET managers believe that it was unfair of Mr Darling to compare its performance against an average that includes companies such as Chiltern and c2c, which operate on dedicated tracks and are therefore much less likely to suffer delays.

Gerry Doherty, general secretary of the TSSA union, which represents white-collar rail staff, said: “We urge ministers to think again and keep South Eastern in the public sector.

“If nothing else, it would give ministers a not-for-profit benchmark to help them to measure the effectiveness of private franchises.”

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