Delay attribution is the process by which the causes of reasons for delays to train services delay are determined both the 'what' and the 'who'.
January 2022 consultation update
Since our last update, work on the active recommendations from the DA review has continued in the industry.
- The Delay Attribution Board continues its work to make sure that delay codes are relevant and fit for purpose (recommendations 4 and 5). With specific reference to Recommendation 4, the issue of the April 2021 Delay Attribution Principles and Rules saw the withdrawal of a number of Delay Codes from use, to help streamline and simplify the attribution process.
- RSSB has experienced some challenges in its project on the automatic attribution of reactionary delay (recommendation 9), but has a plan to address these in 2022.
- Network Rail is considering the updating of delay attribution technology (recommendation 7).
We will continue to monitor how this work is progressing in the coming months.
In addition, as part of ORR's periodic review 2023 (PR23) programme, we are undertaking a review of the Schedule 8 train performance regime.
September 2020 consultation update
The latest stage of the review into delay attribution has concluded. This involved a cross industry steering group of expert stakeholders to more closely examine the ten recommendations and propose next steps for each of them. The findings were:
- Four of the recommendations (4, 5, 7 and 9) are being progressed by industry partners, including RSSB, Network Rail and the Delay Attribution Board.
- Four of the recommendations (2, 3, 6 and 8) should not be progressed, due to limited consensus on their value amongst the steering group.
- The remaining two recommendations the steering group recommended for progression, with good solutions which need sponsorship.
Each of these recommendations are ‘stand-alone’ activities that have no cross dependencies. ORR has thus concluded that there is no longer a need for a coordinated programme to implement this work. Instead, the solution will be for industry partners to develop and deliver those recommendations where value can be added to the industry.
January 2019 consultation
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As part of the 2018 periodic review (PR18) consultation process, we proposed to base future Schedule 8 compensation payments on delay minutes caused by one operator on another (known as ‘TOC-on-TOC’ delay), in place of the current proxy measure –the delay that an operator causes to its own trains (known as ‘TOC-on-self’ delay).
In direct response to this proposal and at other stages of PR18, stakeholders raised a number of concerns with the delay attribution process. The concerns raised ranged from issues with specific delay attribution rules to more fundamental concerns over the effectiveness of governance arrangements and of dispute resolution mechanisms. In addition, stakeholders have also expressed concerns in the past that the delay attribution process consumes a significant proportion of industry resources.
In part due to these arguments, we decided not to implement our Schedule 8 proposal in control period 6(CP6). However, we noted that this decision would provide time to review the effectiveness of the delay attribution process more generally and for any improvements to be implemented ahead of the next periodic review.
In the PR18 final determination, we confirmed that we would begin a review of delay attribution in early 2019.
We envisage the review being split into three stages:
- a scoping stage;
- a development/problem solving stage; and
- an implementation stage.
We launched the scoping stage in January 2019 and published our recommendations report in July 2019.
We expect subsequent stages to be led by industry, with the implementation stage of the review concluding by 2021. The scoping stage report sets out our views on next steps.
Scoping stage report
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Consultation letter
Delay attribution review - Scoping stage consultation letter
15 January 2019
Stakeholder event
On 19 February 2019, ORR held a stakeholder event to discuss the current delay attribution system.
Delay attribution review - slides from ORR workshop on 19 February 2019