Rail bosses have unveiled plans to improve services for millions of disgruntled customers.

Southern Railway and Network Rail have highlighted 30 improvements needed across the network to slash delays, boost capacity and increase customer satisfaction.

New initiatives to improve performance include the recruitment of 80 drivers, improving signalling systems across the whole of East Sussex and tackling the “growing trend” of fatalities on the railway.

The ‘rail performance improvement plan’ was published alongside data revealing that 79.8% of Southern’s trains made it to their final destination on time in October – down from 84.8% the year before.

David Scorey, Southern managing director, admitted performance had “deteriorated” and said the plans had been made public for the first time because passengers were concerned.

He said: “We’d be wrong to say performance is not an issue. We know it has deteriorated in the past year or so, some being weather related, some because of infrastructure projects like the Thameslink work, but this is about transparency and letting people know what we’re doing.

“It’s a tough bit of railway to operate. Capacity and performance are at odds and it continues to be tough, but we are working really, really hard to improve things.”

Southern admits there is risk of “short-time performance impact to deliver longer-term improvements”. It cites the £6.5 billion Thameslink rail project as one source of delays.

When complete in 2018, the Thameslink work will link Brighton and Gatwick with central London and stations north of the Thames.

The current Brighton to Bedford route will add Cambridge, King’s Lynn, Ashford and Eastbourne as destinations.

Mr Scorey stopped short of saying services were going to get worse before they got better. He said: “I’m not sure that’s the line we’d like to encourage. There are billions of pounds being spent in the Thameslink project that will have some effect but, ultimately, it will mean improved capacity, more trains running than ever and a better service.”

But Chris Page, of campaign group Railfuture, said there was no doubt things would get worse before improvements were seen.

He said: “The Thameslink work means things will be disrupted until it is completed, but once it’s done it will help.

“Southern has been performing poorly compared with other franchises recently, mainly down to the fact the Brighton mainline is overcrowded.

“I’d say one of the most important things Southern and Network Rail want to focus on is keeping people informed when there are delays – and making sure staff have their information to hand to pass to passengers.”