Rail passengers have spoken; it’s time to listen

11 December 2025

The results are in: thousands of rail passengers have shared their experiences on journeys since the summer. Responses show that there are areas where industry is performing relatively well, however, it needs to remain focussed on what matters most to passengers.  

Transport Focus’s refreshed quarterly rail scorecards look at how train operators and Network Rail are currently performing and are used within the industry to identify customer focussed improvements and help drive up passenger satisfaction levels. 

In the first three months of the Rail Customer Experience Survey more than 45,000 passengers have had their say on their journey. We’ve created a scorecard that combines the results with industry data on punctuality and cancellations to create an easy-to-read picture for each train operator. For the first time, all open access and airport operators, as well as Network Rail regions and routes are also included.  

It is early days for the survey and Transport Focus’s six-monthly industry report, which is due to become an official statistic, will provide a detailed analysis on the wider passenger metrics covered in the survey. We are aiming to publish the first report in May 2026.   

Overall national passenger satisfaction is at 88 per cent, with even eight out of ten passengers on the lowest scoring train operators saying they are either fairly or very satisfied with their overall journey. What we will be looking for is an improving trend in the scores, particularly in the areas where passengers tell us it’s necessary to do so and this will only become clear when we have more data.  

At the top end of the scale Stansted Express (95 per cent) and Heathrow Express (94 per cent) passengers are the most satisfied with their overall journey. It’s no surprise to see that they both score highly for punctuality.  

Thameslink and CrossCountry are the lowest performing operators according to passengers with 82 per cent satisfaction. As well as overall satisfaction, key passenger priorities such as value for money, punctuality, crowding and onboard cleanliness tended to score lower than other operators. We’ll be working with operators to understand these issues and what they are doing about it, so passengers see improvements.  

We know that for customers, what matters most is a railway they can depend on, is reliable, value for money and responsive when things go wrong. At the national level these are encouraging results, however the scorecard shows that there are a number of areas where industry needs to focus its efforts.  

As an example, the survey shows that less than half (46 per cent) of passengers who experienced a delay during their journey were happy with how the train companies dealt with it. We have carried out more research into this area and have forthcoming recommendations for the industry that could help drive improvements as a result. We’ll be sharing what we’ve learnt from working with GWR and ScotRail by seeing information and systems in the control room, alongside what feeds through to customers at stations, on trains and online. Look out for this in the new year. 

Similarly, value for money also remains one of the lowest scoring factors – 59 per cent satisfaction. We know other factors feed into that perception as well as price, for example punctuality and crowding. It will be interesting to see in future surveys what impact the Government’s recently announced fares freeze has on perceptions of value for money. 

At a national level 88 per cent of passengers that received assistance to make their journey say they were satisfied with the assistance they received. Even though the overall score might appear relatively high we know that every time assistance fails this is a significant barrier to disabled passengers travelling, so it’s important these scores are taken seriously and treated differently from other results – they reveal a large number of people being let down, potentially unable to travel or put off from doing so in future. 

Insight from passenger voices is integral to drive a passenger centric culture now and, in the future, to keep passengers at the heart of decision making as we transition to Great British Railways. It’s important that the whole industry – operators and Network Rail – works together to use these insights to focus on driving improvements on the things that matter most to passengers.