South Western Railway has admitted its recent performance "has not been good enough" after passengers were left to face long delays and cancellations on numerous occasions in December.
Earlier this month, passengers were hit by three days of major disruption as services across the South Western Railway network were cancelled and delayed following a line side fire and a track circuit failure.
Many were affected by further disruption on "Frantic Friday" (December 22), due to a "shortage of train guards".
Some members of staff are planning to stage a walkout on New Year's Eve as part of a dispute over the role of train guards as well.
The operator, which took over from South West Trains in August, made the admission after Ed Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton, publicly demanded improvements.
The MP, who is also a frustrated commuter, said his "patience had run out" as the train operating company's services "are getting worse".
He has called a "top level meeting" with the railway franchise and has promised to demand improvements in punctuality and communications with passengers.
"As a daily commuter from Surbiton myself, I have also been experiencing the delays, cancellations and poor communication from SWR," said Mr Davey.
"It is not right that as train prices continue to rise, our services are getting worse."
The Liberal Democrat MP has also criticised the quality of the company's timetable consultation, which closed(Friday December 22).
'We apologise to our passengers'
A South Western Railway spokesman said: “We are aware of Mr Davey’s concerns and are in regular contact with him regarding these issues.
“We apologise to our passengers that our recent performance has not been good enough.
"There have been various reasons for this, including railway infrastructure failures, trespass incidents, train failures and passengers taking ill.
"Last week was particularly challenging when a lineside fire caused extensive damage to signalling equipment closing a number of platforms at Waterloo which resulted in prolonged disruption across the network.
"This was followed by a signal failure at Vauxhall which restricted routes into and out of Waterloo, causing further disruption."
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He added: “We are working closely with Network Rail on things such as infrastructure monitoring initiatives, additional response teams, removal of speed restrictions, train reliability modifications and increasing train crew availability to help us improve punctuality for our passengers.”
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