When most passengers are faced with a delayed or cancelled train, they might roll their eyes or fire off an angry tweet. Not Nick Mitchell.

When his complaints to Northern rail fell on deaf ears, the long-suffering commuter decided to take matters into his own hands.

He set up an app that used open data to tell him why his train had been cancelled, often finding out before it was announced at his station.

But what started as a “little fun project” for his own personal use has become an everyday essential for thousands of beleaguered passengers on Northern trains.

Since its release last May, more than 18,000 people have downloaded Mitchell’s Northern Fail app, relying on its up-to-the-minute alerts of every fully and part-cancelled service across the network.

Data compiled by Mitchell’s app reveals the full scale of Northern passengers’ misery: there were 15,800 full cancellations and 18,696 part cancellations in the year to May 2019, with an additional 28,198 trains running with reduced carriages.

One in four cancellations was due to a shortage of train drivers, according to the figures, while a further 19% were caused by faults with the train or the signalling service.

From Sunday to midday on Wednesday, Northern Fail showed 300 fully or part cancelled services and a further 301 trains running with reduced carriages. With statistics like that, it is little wonder that the app has been cited by MPs while grilling the transport secretary, Chris Grayling.

“I set the app up in May last year when I was getting the trains because they were so frickin’ bad,” said Mitchell, a 32-year-old software developer. “They were getting cancelled all the time, getting to work late, getting home late, buying tickets and the train not turning up so you’ve got to get a taxi.”

Mitchell said he was driven to build the app when he was blocked on Twitter by Northern “because I complained too much”. He welcomed the call by the mayors of Greater Manchester and Liverpool city region for Northern to be stripped of its franchise.

“It started off as a bit of a frustration and a joke and its purpose was to highlight how bad they were, really, to people who didn’t get trains. It’s basically showing data of their incompetence.”

While thousands of passengers rely daily on Northern Fail, Mitchell is no longer one of them. Shortly after building the app he passed his driving test and now takes the car to work: “It’s definitely cheaper. It’s reliable as well. Pretty bad that, innit?”