Less than 3% of ScotRail services cancelled in 2024

The Herald Scotland

4 hours ago

A high water mark in 2022 saw 23,207 services cancelled, or 3.7% of all trains.
Early figures in 2025 have also been positive, with only 2.2% of trains cancelled this year, as of 16 May.
Mark Ilderton, ScotRail's Service Delivery Director, praised the findings.
He told The Herald: 'Everyone across Scotland's Railway is working flat out for our customers to ensure our rail service is a safe, reliable, and green form of public transport.
'We operate more than 2,100 services every day, with around nine out of ten of those services meeting the punctuality target, getting customers to where they need to be.
'Cancellations can be for a number of reasons, many of them outside the control of ScotRail, but represented around two per cent of more than 650,000 services we operate across the country over the course of the year.'
ScotRail trains were cancelled less than 3% of the time in 2024. (Image: Merseytravel) However, the number of public performance monitoring (PPM) failures has fluctuated in recent years. The figure increased slightly between 2022 and 2024, rising from 69,625 to 73,359. However, the overall failure percentage dropped from 11.2% to 10.7%.
PPM tracks the publicity of train services, measuring the percentage of trains which arrive at their destination within five minutes for regional trains and ten minutes for long distance services.
Ilderton said that while the trends were 'encouraging', there was more work to be done.
He said: 'Our focus is building on the hard work of our people to deliver the safe and reliable railway that our customers expect and deserve, and to encourage more people to travel by train instead of using the car.
'And with more than nine out of ten customers satisfied with our service according to Transport Focus, the independent watchdog for transport users, it's testament to the hard work of ScotRail staff in delivering a safe, reliable, and green railway.'
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ScotRail is 'fixing' AI train announcer after controversy over voice used
The Herald's FOI request also queried the cost of ScotRail's AI announcement system, dubbed 'Iona'.
The system sparked controversy after Scottish voiceover artist Gayanne Potter alleged tech firm Read Speaker used recordings of her voice to develop the software — without her permission.
When asked to provide details on how much it cost to develop and implement the system, ScotRail declined, stating 'Iona' did not incur "development costs' as it was 'an off the shelf product'.
Potter told the BBC: "I have to look on social media and see people mocking it, berating it.
"They don't realise it's actually a real person who's been put through a dreadful voice app."
Potter added: "It's hard enough for people in the creative industry to sustain careers but to be competing with a robotic version of yourself just adds insult to injury."
First Minister John Swinney has told MSPs in Holyrood that ScotRail would be 'fixing' the software.