Transport User Voice January 2026 – Chief Executive’s editorial

27 January 2026

The Railways Bill is going through Parliament and as one of the organisations affected, we were asked to give evidence to the Transport Select Committee before Christmas and a couple of weeks ago to the Bill Committee. One of the things that came up in our sessions, and the wider debates about the Bill, is how Great British Railways (GBR) will be held to account.

For me it’s important that this is done in a predictable and transparent way.  Sometimes we will be representing passengers by making sure their interests are considered in consultations before decisions are made, on other occasions we’ll be asking GBR to explain how it is addressing concerns we’ve identified from complaints or surveys. The six-monthly reports we produce alongside the new Rail Customer Experience Survey will be a particularly important part of doing this. Look out for the first of these in May.

I’m also really pleased we’re able to share in this month’s edition our report on communications during disruption. Passengers care about this and poorly handled disruption is often the biggest driver of their dissatisfaction. The way we did the research was interesting too – we had colleagues on the ground experiencing disruption at stations and on trains, at the same time as someone sat in the control room.  It’s fascinating to see not just what the problems were that passengers experienced, but what the barriers were to communicating better information to them. Huge thanks to GWR and Scotrail for supporting us in this work – it showed confidence and a willingness to learn on their part that must be an integral part of the culture we want GBR to embrace.

Enjoy the read.

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