Putting a spotlight on rail performance

13 March 2025

Rail passengers returned to their commute last week to find fares rising once again despite unacceptable levels of delays and cancellations continuing. 

Our research shows there is a clear gap between what people pay for their ticket and the service they currently feel they get in return. This needs to change. Passengers rightly expect to see improvements for the money they have paid.  

Today we have published our latest train operator scorecards which highlight industry performance on what matters most to passengers. The scorecards draw together Transport Focus passenger satisfaction results about their most recent journey and industry data on punctuality, cancellations, and complaints. In creating this comparative snapshot, we want to play our role in supporting a more customer focussed culture within train operators and the wider rail industry. This should help to identify customer focussed improvements and ultimately drive-up satisfaction levels. 

So, what have passengers told us? 

LNER passengers are the most satisfied with their overall journey with 94 per cent satisfaction. All of LNER’s scores have gone up apart from value for money and their scorecard results register as green across the board. Notably their stations score better than most other train operators by some margin. 

At the other end of the scale CrossCountry has seen improvements in the proportion of passengers that are satisfied with their journey overall with their score going up from 72 to 77 per cent. CrossCountry still have a way to go to deliver a service that passengers expect with crowding having slipped again. While we’re aware that improvements are being considered, including additional carriages on some trains, passengers will want to see these as soon as possible. It’s vital CrossCountry builds on these initial signs of improvement, focusing on the key drivers of passenger satisfaction, a punctual and reliable service and the ability to get a seat. 

Five train operators (LNER, Merseyrail, c2c, Greater Anglia and ScotRail) score 90 per cent or over for overall passengers, which is positive. The average score is around 85 per cent and train operators between London North Western and South Western Railway are bunched within close range of the average.  

This quarter’s results also reinforce the importance of good service performance in driving passenger satisfaction, we always know that satisfaction is linked with punctuality. Operators with 90 per cent passenger satisfaction or over also receive higher scores for punctuality and reliability, while the remaining operators by comparison generally received lower satisfaction scores for punctuality. Value for money scores also remain some of the lowest and there’s considerable room for improvement in this area. 

It was good to see the introduction last week of station-level information about punctuality and cancellations. I’d be interested to see how the industry takes this opportunity to drive a more customer-focussed culture. For example, the results will be updated every month so could this be an opportunity for senior managers to talk to customers in stations about their latest performance? If everyone did this on the same day right across the rail network it would send a strong signal. 

In the scorecards personal safety and cleanliness also come through as areas for improvement in passenger comments. We know these are integral to a good passenger experience and while there are initiatives and processes to manage them, the comments highlight that there’s more to done. Interestingly, comments about services being dirty, unsafe and expensive were often combined in passenger feedback. 

Many of us have been talking about the Government’s rail reform proposals recently. My sense is that there is real commitment to make the changes work – if we don’t take the opportunity now we risk missing it for another generation. But reform to rail industry structures is only one necessary part of the change we all want to see. A more customer-focussed culture has to underpin whatever we do and it needs to start now, not wait for the reforms to be in place. 

That’s the intention behind our scorecard, to support a customer focussed conversation about what can be done to make improvements, rather than putting energy into explaining or defending why things aren’t already better. If you’re reading this in a train operator that hasn’t done so well, please take the scorecard in that spirit. When things improve, even from a low base, we’ll be the first to recognise it. 

I hope the scorecards support this and look forward to hearing the conversations they generate.