I wrote to complain to Southern about the punctuality of the commuter trains asking if there was a journey-specific refund policy similar to London Underground's and received the following response:

'Dear Shizue

Thank you for your Webform.

Please accept my apologies for the problems you have experienced whilst travelling with Southern recently; I can fully understand your frustration considering it should only be a short journey.

I can assure you though, that we are committed to providing a good service for everyone who travels with us, and are determined to minimise delays and cancellations. We record details of every delay or cancellation and this information is used to work out the best way of improving the reliability and punctuality of our trains. Roughly half of all delays or cancellations can be traced to problems with the infrastructure - in other words, tracks, signals, bridges and so on. We are working hard with Network Rail and their maintenance contractors to reduce the number of infrastructure problems. For example, Network Rail are currently replacing point motors in key locations with more reliable types that are less likely to produce a points failure. For our part, we are looking hard at the reliability of some of our trains. We have implemented a programme of driver recruitment to eliminate train crew related delays and cancellations. We are determined to not only meet but exceed the targets set under the Passenger's Charter.

As part of our commitments to you in our Passenger's Charter, we have an automatic compensation scheme for our season ticket holders. Basically this means that if we fail to meet the advertised targets for running trains on time, or for keeping cancellations to a minimum, then we give you a discount when you renew your ticket. However, in order to guard against giving un-earned discount, such renewals have to be on a like-for-like basis. Moreover, as part of this process, you will understand that we do not then give additional compensation for any individual delay.

To explain a little about how this is calculated, our achievements on running trains on time (referred to as 'punctuality') and keeping cancellations to a minimum ('reliability') are worked out every four weeks. This is then added to the previous twelve periods' figures and the average is calculated. If this average is below the set target, then we discount monthly or longer tickets if they are renewed within the following four weeks. The discount is 5% for each category (punctuality and reliability) and 10% will be given if both are below target.

Our results are published on our Passenger Charter posters, which are always displayed at stations.

Once again, I am sorry for the inconvenience you have been caused, but I hope you will continue to travel with Southern so that you will witness first-hand the improvements we make.

Regards

William Henry
Southern Customer Services'

Naturally I instantly checked their performance targets. Unfortunately, they hit them. Because the moment rush hour is over their trains are back on track. If you look at their live departure boards on the website, after about 9.45am ish, they all start being on time up to 4.30pm - 6pm where they go all screwy again.

Great if you want to travel at 2.30pm on a Wednesday afternoon then!