Is my bus service any good?

06 March 2012

Well you should know as you use them. However, what you do not know is how good the others are. Is your service okay, mediocre or good by comparison? This approach forms the basis of Passenger Focus’s business model. Ask passengers what they think of their service and then publish comparative data. The comparability of the data is crucial.  Not a league table, but the start of a sensible discussion about why services are different. Not the answers to how to operate service, but an ordered, considered passenger view of the service experience. What the research shows are the enormous variations by company, region and route. Value for money, a catch all question in some ways, shows up big gaps. The recent rail National Passenger Survey overall value for money question by route veered from 27% satisfied or good on the then National Express East Anglia Stansted route to the nirvana-like 79% on Grand Central. Yes, very different services doing very different things, but the overall passenger expectations are similar. The next wave of the Bus Passenger Survey, out tomorrow shows similar variances. We then try and use this data to help focus investment priorities and get things moving in the right direction.