The region's top transport politician wants a showdown with the West Midlands' main train operator over its "dismal" performance.
Coun Gary Clarke, chairman of the Passenger Transport Authority, said recent Government rail figures showed a quarter of Central Trains' services in January to March failed to run to schedule. However, the operator hit back, saying it was now running at its best performance level for five years.
The Strategic Rail Authority's survey of national rail trends said nine out of ten trains on Britain's' busiest rail routes were now running on time.
However, Central, which runs commuter services across the conurbation, saw a 16 per cent increase in delayed or cancelled trains compared with the same period last year.
"Once again Central Trains' performance is bottom of the league and passengers in the West Midlands deserve much better," said Coun Clarke (Con Streetly).
He has now called for a summit meeting with the train operator to discuss the issue.
"We have more people than ever using public transport and this is the greatest hope we have in the battle against congestion." He added the continued poor performance of Central Trains was partly due to the severe capacity problems at the heart of the national network, where inter-city, regional and local services are all competing for the same track.
A new joint control centre for the region, with officials from Virgin, Central and Network Rail, opened in May and performance across the network has improved.
Last night, a Central Trains spokesman added: "We would be delighted to meet Coun Clarke and explain how all the hard work that we and our industry partners have put in has improved performance."
