The annual report from the Office of Road and Rail found that HS1, whose domestic services are part-operated by Southeastern Railways, met or exceeded targets for delays and financial performance in the year 2015-16.

The St Pancras – Ashford International line, operated by Southeastern, saw much faster growth than expected with an extra 1,750 trains being added to the network.

During the period, it helped HS1 generate income of £70.5m – £4.6m higher than predicted – while operating costs were £0.5m lower than forecast.

Performance by HS1 remains significantly better than the performance floor target. The overall average seconds delay per train in the year was 10.12, however, over half of these delays were attributed to 4 major trespass incidents, without which, the average delay would have been 5.1 seconds.

Keolis UK operates Southeastern as part of the Govia franchise, which has run the high-speed rail service between St Pancras and Ashford International since 2009, transporting 640,000 passengers a day.

The ORR report focuses on the key areas of HS1 Ltd’s work and on ORR’s regulation of it. In it, the ORR outline the work they have done under the terms of the HS1 Concession Agreement and under the Railways Infrastructure (Access & Management) Regulations 2005, and health and safety regulations.

Read the full ORR report.