SCOTRAIL has been fined more than £2.2 million in just six months after breaching a series of targets.
The operator fell short on a number of key measures such as customer service and security, as well as for having unclean trains, toilets and stations.
Between January and June this year, it was fined £2,241,837 by Transport Scotland.
Scottish Labour’s transport spokesman Colin Smyth insisted passengers deserve better.
He said: “The least they can expect for a four figure-season ticket is for trains to be clean, but as these official figures show that is routinely not the case.
“These fines are not worth the paper they are written on, with privately-run ScotRail funded by the taxpayer through subsidies in the first place.
"It is passengers who are essentially paying both the fines and the price for their continued mismanagement of our railways.”
ScotRail, which is run by Dutch firm Abellio, missed 15 out of 38 targets between April and June.
But bosses pointed to a 10 per cent reduction in fines compared to the previous three months.
In the last financial year, the operator was fined £4.6 million.
ScotRail’s penalties are placed into an investment fund and pumped back into Scotland’s railways.
Manuel Cortes, leader of the TSSA transport union, said this amounted to “simply recycling public money and does nothing to improve services”.
He said: “Scottish taxpayers deserve better than simply seeing their money moved from one budget pot to another whilst their trains remain late and dirty and their stations understaffed.
“The figures show that Abellio isn’t running our Scottish railway well. Meanwhile the Dutch newspapers have exposed that Abellio makes more money from its British franchises than it does from running the Dutch railways. This is the economics of the madhouse.”
David Lister, ScotRail’s sustainability and safety assurance director, said the latest figures demonstrated “progress”.
He said: “The investment we are making – in new and refurbished trains, in station facilities, and in our people – is part of our plan to build the best railway Scotland has ever had.
“This year we have delivered major milestones across Scotland’s railway – including the introduction of the first iconic high-speed Inter7City train, our brand-new Hitachi Class 385 electric trains, the opening of the redeveloped Dundee Station, and significant station improvements on the Edinburgh-Glasgow route.”
A Transport Scotland spokeswoman said action is underway to address areas of concern.
She said: “A hundred and forty extra staff are being recruited to address the staffing issues which lead to ticket offices being closed when they should be open and to improve the availability of on-train staff.
“An operational review has produced better working processes so that faults with equipment are dealt with more effectively.
“There is still clearly work to be done and we expect to see further progress from ScotRail in the coming months.”
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