Cancellation data shows region's worst-hit stations

Among the country's 100 busiest stations, Coventry was 30th on the list for cancelled services

A Herefordshire station experienced the highest rate of cancellations in the West Midlands region over 12 months, data has shown.

Ledbury saw 7.5% of services cancelled in the year ending mid-August, which was the 54th highest rate in the country, according to Office of Rail and Road (ORR) figures analysed by the BBC.

Coventry had the highest rate among the region's busiest stations, with 3,215, or 4.1% of scheduled train stops cancelled.

Rail companies are promising to improve reliability, with West Midlands Railway, saying it was spending more on trains and infrastructure and training new drivers. Meanwhile, Avanti West Coast said its overall cancellation figures had fallen.

'Weather, trespass and infrastructure'

An Avanti West Coast spokesperson added: "Within the time period mentioned almost two thirds of our cancellations were as a result of factors such as infrastructure, weather or trespass."

The company said it had seen its overall figure "more than halve" compared to this time last year "with the ORR recently reporting this was the largest improvement compared to other train operators".

Of the 100 busiest stations in the country, Coventry was in 30th place for the highest percentage of stops cancelled.

Birmingham New Street followed in 31st place with 4% of its 302,123 scheduled stops cancelled in the same time period.

The city's quieter Moor Street station experienced 3.3% of cancellations of about 67,100 planned stops.

According to the data, these cancellations were among about three million cancelled stops in Britain of a scheduled 89 million.

Michael Solomon Williams from Campaign for Better Transport said cancellations were "eroding passenger faith in the railways".

He said they were "not just an inconvenience" as caused "real problems including leaving people literally stranded" and called for "tougher targets, automatic compensation, and proper investment".

Cancelled services were "eroding faith" in the railways, said the Campaign for Better Transport

The Rail Delivery Group, which represents National Rail and other train operators, said: "We know how important reliability and punctuality is to customers and the rail industry is working hard to maintain as many services as possible.

"This includes significant investment to improve infrastructure and rolling stock reliability."

Train operators tried to maintain as many services as possible, it said, but cancellations or delays "can occur due to various factors, such as extreme weather, infrastructure issues like track or signalling faults, train faults and external incidents, such as trespass."

A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was "determined to drive up standards across the railways", adding: "We are starting to see positive signs of progress with overall cancellations starting to fall."