Port of Cardiff — Period 13 2025-26 (1–28 March) report
Port of Cardiff received 36 monitored inbound services in Period 13 2025-26 — a small monitored sample of a single-operator steel and scrap flow. 87% of 23 completed arrivals were within 15 minutes of schedule (90% Wilson interval 71–95%), against a national freight benchmark of 89% over 17,665 completed services. A cancellation rate of 36% (13 of 36 scheduled paths) dominates the period picture. All 23 completed arrivals were handled by a single operator. Inaugural Port of Cardiff period report; no prior-period comparison is published.
- Edition
- v1.0 (industry review edition)
- Last updated
- 28 March 2026
- Next update
- Period 1 2026-27 — 28 May 2026
Headline facts and figures
Services monitored
36
A small monitored sample across the three Port of Cardiff TIPLOCs (CARDFTS, CARDGBR, CARDRP); Period 13 2025-26 (1–28 Mar 2026); NROD-derived arrivals data; Period 12 2025-26 baseline is below the publishable threshold; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-28
Within 15 minutes
87%
23 completed services arriving within 15 minutes of schedule (90% Wilson interval 71–95% given the small monitored sample of 23 services); note: 36% cancellation rate reduced completed services to 23 of 36 scheduled; national freight benchmark 89% over 17,665 completed services in Period 13 2025-26; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-28
Cancellation rate
36%
13 cancellations across 36 scheduled paths — a materially high rate on a small monitored sample (tiny single-operator steel and scrap flow); Period 12 2025-26 baseline is below the publishable threshold for a defensible comparator; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-28
Busiest operator
DB Cargo UK
23 of 23 completed arrivals (100%); single-operator flow; aggregated by operator from TRUST toc_id; Period 13 2025-26; queried gauge_intelligence_v2 at 2026-05-28
Context
ORR publishes aggregates only; this page publishes destination-attributed port-level data. Material to yard planning, terminal allocation, and port-side performance reviews.
What you can do with it
- Track arrivals reliability at a port, attributed by destination TIPLOC.
- Compare operator-by-operator reliability on services inbound to a single port.
- Cite the methodology in port operations and corridor reviews.
Who can use it
Port operations leaders · Terminal allocators · Rail journalists
Across Period 13 2025-26, roughly 0 inbound trains a day arrived at Port of Cardiff more than 15 minutes late — about 1 in 8 of 21 completed arrivals over the 28-day period, 3 late arrivals in total. This is a small monitored sample of 36 scheduled services on a single-operator steel and scrap flow; the 90% Wilson interval (71–95%) is wide and figures carry limited statistical weight individually. A cancellation rate of 36% (13 of 36 scheduled paths) is the dominant feature of the period; all 21 completed arrivals were operated by DB Cargo UK inbound along the South West & Wales to Midlands corridor. Figures are drawn from Network Rail's NROD/TRUST feed. The Period 12 2025-26 trailing window is below the threshold for a stable comparator; subsequent periods will carry the comparison against the prior period. Cancellations are reported separately below.
Operators at Cardiff-inbound
DB Cargo UK ran the most cardiff-inbound services in Period 13 2025-26 (21 of 21 completed arrivals). The full per-operator reliability comparison is deferred while the v1.0 industry review edition corrections inbox remains open.
Publishing a per-operator on-time comparison for the busiest freight operators at a single destination before the launch-cohort corrections cycle closes would treat provisional attribution as settled. The table returns at v2.0 general availability. The league-table methodology documents the comparison framework; the release cadence page sets out the four exit criteria for v2.0.
Source: Gauge Intelligence NROD-derived journey data, Period 13 2025-26. Single-destination headline figures (completed arrivals, aggregate within-15-minute rate, cancellations) continue to appear in the panels above; the per-operator breakdown is the panel deferred here.
Outbound destinations — services leaving Port of Cardiff
Margam Steel Terminal took 5 of 26 outbound services (19%) in Period 13 2025-26 — the only registered inland destination with services in this period, arriving within 15 minutes on 80% of trips.
| Inland terminal | Outbound services | Share | Within 15 minutes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Margam Steel Terminal | 5 | 19% | 80% (44–95%) |
Source: Gauge Intelligence NROD-derived journey data, Period 13 2025-26. Total outbound services count every journey originating at any Port of Cardiff terminal TIPLOC, including services to destinations not yet named in the inland-terminal registry; rows are restricted to registered inland-terminal destinations, so the share column shows each terminal’s slice of total outbound traffic and the row counts will not sum to the total. Destinations with a published archive page link to that page; destinations named in the registry but not yet published render as plain text. The bracketed range on each within-15-minutes figure is the 90% confidence range given the sample size; terminals with fewer than 5 services in the period show a dash. Cancellations are excluded. Lens: supply-chain (port-origin destination-attributed) — see league-table methodology.
What the 15-minute threshold hides
Half of Period 13 2025-26 services arrived early — the median was 19 min ahead of timetable. The long tail the A2F binary misses: 5% of services ran +23 min or more late, and 1% arrived over +76 min late. The 15-minute A2F threshold sits at the 86th percentile — 14% of services exceeded it.
| Percentile | Arrival delay |
|---|---|
| 50th percentile (median) — A2F threshold sits at the 86th percentile | -19 min |
| 75th percentile — A2F threshold sits at the 86th percentile | -1 min |
| 85th percentile — A2F threshold sits at the 86th percentile | +8 min |
| 90th percentile | +21 min |
| 95th percentile | +23 min |
| 99th percentile | +76 min |
21 services with confirmed terminal arrival in Period 13 2025-26. A2F is binary at 15 minutes — this distribution surfaces what the headline figure does not show. National 99th percentile across all freight operators: 98 min.
ORR's Freight rail usage and performance release publishes by Network Rail region and route, not by operator. This page publishes by operator and corridor.
Daily on-time arrivals across Period 13 2025-26
Range 0%–100% across 28 days. Mean 87%. (14 of 28 days had recorded services.)
Period 13 2025-26 daily A2F averaged 99% across 14 observations. One or more observations fell outside the expected range (12 day(s) beyond the expected range; 10 run(s) of two-of-three days off-mean; 6 run(s) of four-of-five days off-mean), indicating an unusual event rather than ordinary noise.
Source: Gauge Intelligence NROD-derived journey data, Period 13 2025-26. A service is counted on time when terminal arrival falls within 15 minutes of schedule. Days with no scheduled services (typically Sundays) render as gaps — a missing bar means no measurement, not a value at zero. Red bars flag days that triggered a statistical signal — see anomaly-detection methodology.
ORR's Freight rail usage and performance release publishes by Network Rail region and route, not by operator. This page publishes by operator and corridor.
Cancellation rate
In Period 13 2025-26, 36% of scheduled services were cancelled (13 of 36) — 22.6pp above the national mean of 14% across all freight operators; FOC traction, crew, and terminal decisions accounted for the largest share.
| Scheduled or activated paths | 36 |
| Cancelled (post-activation + pre-activation) | 13 |
| Cancellation rate | 36% 24%–50% |
| National cancellation rate (all freight) | 14% |
Attribution
| Responsible party | Cancellations | Share of cancelled |
|---|---|---|
| Network Rail infrastructure and possessions | 0 | 0% |
| FOC traction, crew, and terminal decisions | 13 | 100% |
| Third party | 0 | 0% |
| Unattributed | 0 | 0% |
Source: NROD/TRUST activation feed and BPLAN scheduled paths, Period 13 2025-26. Cancellation rate = (post-activation + pre-activation cancellations) ÷ scheduled or activated paths. Pre-activation cancellations are TRUST CANCEL messages on schedules that never activated; post-activation cancellations have an activation and a CANCEL event. The bracketed range beside the headline rate is the 90% confidence range on the cancellation proportion given the sample size. Cause attribution uses the responsible-party mapping of the recorded cancellation reason code; see delay-attribution methodology.
What this page does not measure
Pre-activation cancellations fall outside the dataset: TRUST requires an activation event before it records a journey, so services cancelled before activation produce no TRUST record. VSTPs are excluded from the path-utilisation denominator because no Working Timetable row exists against which to measure them. Journeys without a confirmed terminal arrival are excluded from the delay distribution. The 15-minute A2F threshold is a regulatory artefact, not a natural cut-off — the "What the 15-minute threshold hides" panel surfaces the distribution behind that line.
Commercial licence
Four derivations are released to commercial-licence subscribers rather than the public archive. Each one reconciles TRUST source-data against Network Rail's Historic Delay Attribution record independently, not republished from public statistics.
- Schedule 8 net position
- Why late — delay attribution
- Schedule 4 possession exposure
- Path utilisation — corridor breakdown
Available under commercial licence. Contact [email protected] for subscription terms.
Methodology & sources
All figures derive from Network Rail's NROD TRUST feed, processed via the Gauge Intelligence ingest pipeline. Period definitions, A2F (Arrival to Fifteen), the Wilson 90% interval, daily anomaly rules, cross-view reconciliation, and delay attribution are documented at:
Data window — period boundaries and the data-as-of cutoff
League tables — cross-view reconciliation across the four analytical views
Anomaly detection — daily A2F SPC rules
Delay attribution — DAPR cause-code breakdown
Forecasting — prediction intervals and possession-exposure estimates
Revisions
No revisions to date.
A revision restates a published figure because the upstream data changed, typically a Network Rail delay-attribution refresh. The minor tier is corrected in the next release; cells affected carry an (r) flag. The intermediate tier triggers immediate amendment with an (r) flag. The wholesale tier is flagged at the top of the page and notified directly to operators and rail journalists subscribed to revision alerts.
Corrections
No corrections to date.
A correction fixes an error in the published output: an arithmetic slip, a typo, a mis-rendered chart. Revisions are different; they restate a figure because the upstream data changed. The distinction matters because corrections never silently rewrite a published number.