CHILTERN Railways remains one of Britain’s most punctual train operators over the past year.

In the 12 months to August 17, 95.4 per cent of its trains, which link Bicester and Banbury with London Marylebone and Birmingham, were on time, against a national average of 90.8 per cent.

The figure is based on trains arriving within five minutes of their scheduled time for commuter services or 10 minutes for long-distance services.

Only London commuter operators c2c and London Overground had better on-time performance figures, of 97.3 and 96.7 per cent respectively. Merseyrail shared third place with Chiltern.

In the same period, First Great Western, which which links Oxford and Didcot with London Paddington, recorded 89 per cent.

CrossCountry, which links Oxford and Banbury with the South coast and the North of England recorded 87.4 per cent.

From July 21 to August 20, Chiltern was the third most punctual operator, with a figure of 93.9 per cent, the same as in the same period last year. CrossCountry and First Great Western achieved 88.9 and 88.6 respectively, compared with 88.1 and 87.4 a year ago.

Chiltern’s operations and safety director Andrew Munden said: “Ensuring passengers have a punctual service is incredibly important and these statistics reinforce the dedication of our staff to provide a first class experience.”