Last chance to have your say on East Coast rail services

23 January 2014

East Coast rail passengers are urged to act quickly to have their say on future train services.

The independent watchdog Passenger Focus is calling for people to share their current experiences and future needs in the first online feedback exercise of its kind – which closes at midnight on Monday.  Please click here to take part.

The information will be used by the companies bidding to run the service from February 2015 so this feedback could directly influence what is on offer.

Acting chief executive David Sidebottom said:
“We have long said that as one of the main funders of the railway, passengers’ voices must be heard. Passengers tell us they want more information and more of a say in big decisions made on their behalf.

“This is a good opportunity for people to let companies know what they actually want from future services.”

Passenger Focus has been pushing for Passenger Power! – boosting the passenger voice in rail services – for some time. We already provide evidence from our National Rail Passenger Survey, which shows what existing passengers think of key areas of service, as well as some bespoke research, to the Department for Transport (DfT) when it is making its decision about who will run the service.

Now we are working with the DfT to collect passengers’ personal, local experiences of stations, trains and customer service.  

The shortlisted companies bidding to run the route (FirstGroup, Eurostar/Keolis, and Virgin/Stagecoach) will be able to see and analyse the feedback – with all personal or identifying details removed – and use it to propose a service based around what passengers want.

We will publish the raw data on our website shortly after the deadline for feedback on 27 January 2014.