ScotRail has been fined £483,000 for failing to meet required standards for trains and stations.
The latest performance results, covering the period between July and September, showed the franchise failed to meet a number of targets in areas including station toilets, ticket machines, and train seats, toilets and cleanliness.
The inspection results come as ScotRail, operated by Dutch firm Abellio, has faced criticism for delayed, cancelled and overcrowded trains.
Read more: Parents paying £80,000 above average house price to live in top school catchment areas
They show targets were not met in five out of 17 areas of station performance, and 10 out of 17 quality categories for trains.
Penalties or rewards are issued by Transport Scotland depending on the quarterly performance against a benchmark set by the Service Quality Incentive Regime (Squire). Fines are reinvested into the rail network.
Squire inspectors audit 353 stations and around 200 trains every four weeks.
Service areas inspected range from toilets and timetables to train cleanliness, graffiti, staff service and the public address system.
The inspections cover all stations in Scotland, with the exception of Prestwick International Airport, Lockerbie, Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Central Station, as ScotRail is not the lead operator at these stations.
ScotRail achieved an overall score of 92.21% against a benchmark of 93.12%.
Read more: Parents paying £80,000 above average house price to live in top school catchment areas
Transport Minister Humza Yousaf, said: "The Squire regime is a fundamental part of our efforts to improve the passenger experience and it is the toughest regime of its kind in the UK.
"A dedicated band of inspectors who check trains and stations every day of every month handing out penalties to the operator wherever faults are found.
"The latest quarter two results show a combined penalty of £483,000, and penalties to date for ScotRail's performance within Squire currently stands at £2.2 million.
"This indicates further improvements can, and will, be made in terms of aspects of service delivery such as improvements in station shelters, train doors, train toilets and train announcements, as such Transport Scotland have requested remedial action plans from ScotRail to focus on improving the performance in these areas."
Phil Verster, managing director of the ScotRail Alliance, said: "When we took over the franchise, we signed up to an even tougher Squire scheme than had been in place in previous years.
"We did this because we know that being part of a tough scheme will mean that our staff will always be focused on delivering the best possible service to our customers.
"These figures show that, even although we are delivering in lots of areas, we can never stop striving to improve even further."
Read more: Parents paying £80,000 above average house price to live in top school catchment areas
He added: "We have announced our largest ever train improvement plan.
"Over the course of the next few years we will be spending £475 million on new and refurbished trains as well as great services like enhanced wi-fi and at-seat power sockets."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here