Our Company

Connecting people and communities to what is important to them

Arriva Trains Wales is part of the Arriva Group. Arriva is one of the largest providers of passenger transport in Europe, employing more than 55,000 people and delivering more than 2.2 billion passenger journeys across 14 European countries each year.

We operate a wide range of services including local buses, inter-urban commuter coaches, local, regional and national train services, trams and light rail, waterbuses, demand response, non-emergency patient transport and airport related transport services.

Arriva is part of Deutsche Bahn (DB) and is responsible for DB's regional passenger transport services outside Germany.

Our network extends throughout Wales and the border counties of England, providing local and long distance services to destinations including major cities such as Swansea, Cardiff, Newport, Birmingham, Chester and Manchester.

• 2,204 employees

• Franchise started in December 2003 for 15 years

• 1,009 route miles

• 956 services operated per day

• 30.5 million passenger journeys per year

• A fleet of 128 trains

• 247 stations (10% of the UK total), 55 of which are staffed.

Arriva Trains Wales works with a wide range of local and national partners, such as Welsh Government, to grow and improve rail transport for the public we serve.

Some of our Achievements

• National Rail Passenger Survey (NRPS) - 82% customer satisfaction (Spring 2016)

• Outstanding Performance - we are consistently the best regional and second best national 'right time' performing rail operator in the UK

• £31million of investment since the start of the Franchise against a contractual requirement of just £400,000

• We are one of the largest employers in Wales, employing around 2,200 people and creating more than 300 jobs across Wales and the Borders since the beginning of the franchise

• National Award Winning Apprentice Scheme: recruitment has included 21 apprentices and 13 graduate trainees

Key Performance Measures

Public Performance Measures (Industry standard measures for Reliability and Punctuality)

• Annual reliability and punctuality currently 97.9% and 93.5% respectively

• Best regional ‘Right Time’ operator

• UK’s second-best right-time operator (trains arriving and departing within 59 seconds of scheduled time)

We have taken dramatic strides in improving punctuality and reliability and we consistently out-perform the benchmark set at the start of the franchise, which represented the levels of performance considered challenging but achievable at that time.

National Rail Passenger Survey

• Overall satisfaction has now risen to 89%, up 10% from when the franchise started and 8% above the franchise benchmark.

• 31 out of the 32 different areas of measurement have improved over the past decade.

The independent National Rail Passenger Survey demonstrates customers’ opinions of the work we have done over the years.

Investment in franchise

We have invested £31 million against a franchise requirement of only £400,000. Some of our investments include:

• Over £11m on train refurbishments (Class 158 fleet & loco hauled services)

• Chester station (£2m)

• Train Driver simulators (£2m)

• Improved staff facilities (£2m)

• Ticket gates (£3m)

• 123 Ticket vending machines all across the network (£5m)

• A brand new depot at Machynlleth (£3m)

• A new wheel lathe (£2m)

• Numerous other projects, such as station lighting enhancements worth a total of £10m

• National Stations Improvement Programme in partnership with other stakeholders, plus many improvements to accessibility

• Major station refurbishments included Aberystwyth, Llandudno and Rhyl and new stations at Ebbw Vale Town, Pye Corner, Energlyn and Churchill Park, Fishguard and Goodwick

New and improved services

We have consistently acted to add capacity and improve services whilst working with a limited fleet size. We provide 20% more services (65,000 services every year) than the franchise agreement specifies and added over 525,000 annual seats to the timetable in 2012 alone.

Around 5000 extra trains a year were added in May 2013 for Gowerton following the station improvements and Loughour viaduct redoubling – all at no additional cost to the tax payer.

In 2015 at the request of the Welsh Government, extra services were added on the Heart of Wales and Cambrian lines and timetables extended to the new Ebbw Vale Town station.

Two new innovative Smartphone mticket products were launched as were the UK’s first video assisted train Ticket Vending Machines.

We are also a key supporter of community projects including Disability Sport Wales, Velothon Wales and Cardiff Half Marathon.

We are passionate, proud people delivering excellent service - every time