More of the UK's trains ran on time in March when compared to the previous month, new figures have suggested.

Network Rail has confirmed that overall punctuality on the railways reached 91.4 per cent last month, which was slightly higher than in February 2013 (91 per cent).

Despite this improvement, the figures for Period 13 - which runs between March 3rd and 31st - highlighted an annual decline, as 93.4 per cent of trains were on time in the corresponding month in 2012.

According to leaders of the rail organisation, there were a few mitigating circumstances for the number of late services last month.

Indeed, trains running on the East Coast Main Line were adversely affected by several infrastructure problems, including an overhead line fault near Newark and engineering issues near Darlington.

Network Rail has been vigorously recording these statistics since 1997 in an attempt to highlight any long-standing examples of under-performance and where services can be improved.