A month ago (29 October 2009) it was announced that 16 of the 19 operators saw their performance improve compared to the same period last year.
Virgin Trains saw the biggest improvement in performance and saw the fourth consecutive month of improvement compared to last year.

Virgin Trains     
93.3% (P7 2009)       
84.9%  (P7 2008)   
Increase +8.4%

However it now emerges the Virgin trains receives twice as many complaints per passenger as any other rail operator in Britain. In fact the company gets more complaints than the combined total of 14 of the country’s 19 rail operators.

One passenger out of every 182 travelling by Virgin is left angry and exasperated at the end of their journey.

Virgin operates the west coast line between London and Glasgow and gets 548 complaints per 100,000 passengers. It is a record number and the highest ever received by the Office of Rail Regulation since its formation in 2004.

Virgin was also Britain’s worst railway operator when it came to responding to complaints. It failed to answer 36 per cent within 20 days – the maximum time allowed under customer service guidelines.

According to Virgin the shocking figures are a result of it's policy of encouraging passengers to complain if services are not up to scratch. Travellers were angry at late arrivals, high fares, problems with refunds, carriage quality, staff conduct, complaint-handling and information clarity.
The company was also criticised last week over strikes by ticket office staff, six per cent fare hikes and delays for minor flooding.

It was accused of charging up to eight times more than the lowest advance fares at Christmas, and for managing five of the 10 train stations named as Britain’s worst.

Virgin’s complaints ratio – up more than 50 per cent on the previous year – was more than double that of the next worst operator, Arriva Trains Wales, which had 272 complaints per 100,000 passengers.

A Virgin spokesman said: “Performance was poor and will have caused a lot of complaints. We went through a period of disruption mainly because of the infrastructure of the west coast main line being upgraded. But performance has improved from around 70 per cent punctuality before to 90 per cent now. We also encourage customers to contact us if trains are delayed, so while a lot may write in for refunds, they are treated as complaints.”