by political editor Paul Francis

Rail passengers were not entitled to discounts on their season tickets despite widespread complaints over late-running services and cancellations, according to an independent audit of Southeastern's performance figures.

Despite a litany of complaints from passengers, a report commissioned by the rail operator concludes its punctuality figures were accurate and correctly validated.

There was anger among commuters and Kent MPs when it emerged in January the company had avoided paying compensation to season ticket holders after narrowly scraping past the annual threshold for trains running on time.

Under the Passenger Charter, Southeastern would have had to offer discounts to season ticket holders of five per cent if fewer than 82 per cent of its trains had been punctual.

It passed that target by just 0.04 per cent, triggering disquiet among Kent MPs who questioned the accuracy of the company’s figures and whether the performance of High Speed One services had boosted them.

In response, Southeastern asked for its own audit of the figures. A report by the University of Sheffield, published today, upholds the data and concludes: "As judged against the present validation criteria, the source data, processing and public information for the Passenger’s Charter are satisfactorily accurate."

The report has prompted renewed calls for judgements on punctuality to be based on the performance of individual lines rather than the whole network.

Ashwin Kumar, of the Passenger Focus said: "We don’t think it is right that Southeastern’s season ticket compensation regime puts punctuality on its high- speed lines into the same pot as punctuality on other routes.

"The high-speed lines traditionally do better, so putting everything into the same pot means that punctuality on other lines can fall even lower without compensation being triggered. We think that season ticket compensation should be based on the figures for the route where the passenger travels. If my journey is frequently disrupted, my right to compensation shouldn’t be affected by other routes happening to perform well."

That sentiment was echoed by Tunbridge Wells MP Greg Clark. "It is ridiculous to base performance on the basis of how well all lines are doing. This needs to be changed. As a result of High Speed One services, many people are being denied compensation even though they are paying extra for it."

While Southeastern’s data was given a clean bill of health, it was told that a small number of its high speed and mainline trains which were delayed by more than five minutes had been mistakenly counted as punctual - but not enough to "have inflated the annual punctuality figures above the discount trigger."

The company was also told that its policy on counting trains as having run normally when they missed stops should be reviewed and that in future, "trains that fail to serve the journey expectations of the majority of customers due to missed stops should be counted as full cancellations."

The audit also said Southeastern should be more careful over the accuracy of statements made on Passenger Charter posters regarding "major incidents excluded from the calculations."

In a statement, Southeastern said: "We can confirm that the independent audit by the University of Sheffield has passed our Passenger Charter figures as being accurate. We are continuing to concentrate on improving the service which we provide to our passengers."