London Underground blames rising delays on repair backlog

Transport for London says increasing disruption inevitable unless more funding granted in next year's spending review

Delays on the London Underground caused by signal failures have risen one-third since last year, Transport for London has said, as it urged the government to increase its funding for repairs.

Patrick Doig, TfL's chief financial officer, said services' reliability would "increasingly" be affected unless action was taken to address the network's ageing infrastructure.

"Temporary speed restrictions, timetable gaps and part-line suspensions are already becoming more common and will grow over the coming decade," he said.

In total, delays caused by deteriorating trains, track and signals on the Underground have increased 5 per cent since last year to 641,000 a week on average.

Signalling failure has been the fastest-growing cause of problems. TfL said the figures were significantly affected by a four-day incident at Camden Town in April, which caused peak-time delays on the Northern Line and an extended closure while repairs were carried out.

London is battling for central government funding as Prime Minister Andy Burnham makes clear his desire to focus on other areas, such as northern England.

Chancellor John Healey is expected to announce some new powers for the capital in his Budget next Wednesday, including a funding mechanism that would allow international trains to run from Stratford International in east London.

Decisions on TfL's funding are due to be made in the spending review in 2027.

Doig told the London Assembly in September that TfL had been underinvesting in repairs for a decade due to financial constraints. It is spending about £800mn this year on repairs, against an identified need of about £1.2bn.

Among the Underground's worst-performing services is the Bakerloo Line.

Its trains have been in service for 54 years, two decades longer than their design life. They are the oldest passenger trains in operation in the UK, outside of heritage services.

TfL has cut peak services on the Bakerloo from 20 trains per hour to 18 in an effort to reduce disruption. Despite this, more than 10 per cent of scheduled trains were cancelled between April and September.

TfL had an option to order replacement Bakerloo Line trains from German manufacturer Siemens, but did not have the funding to pursue this, Doig said.

Neil Garratt, a Conservative member of the London Assembly, said it was "unavoidable" that Underground passengers would be affected by deteriorating infrastructure for years to come.

"Even if a cheque for the full £6.5bn backlog landed on City Hall's doormat tomorrow, it would likely take a decade to complete the work," said Garratt, who chairs the assembly's budget and performance committee.

Doig argued that the case for investing in the capital remained strong given its contribution to the UK economy, saying: "Reduced reliability on the Underground impacts productivity and investment."

TfL's downbeat messaging on repairs is at odds with its current advertising campaign, which boasts that it is "making Tube journeys faster in the future with signalling improvements under way on the Circle, District, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan lines".