Satisfaction with rail at all-time low in West Midlands

28 January 2020

West Midlands passengers registered disapproval with recent ‘awful’ performance, as rail satisfaction dropped by 11 percentage points to its lowest score in 10 years. 

The transport user watchdog today releases its latest National Rail Passenger Survey of almost 28,000 passengers. More than 1,000 were West Midlands Trains passengers.  

West Midlands Trains operates West Midlands Railway, which runs local services across the West Midlands encompassing Birmingham, Worcester, Staffordshire, across the black country and extending into Shropshire and Herefordshire.

 It also runs London Northwestern, which operates services through the Midlands, linking London Euston all the way through to Liverpool as well as services through the Trent Valley. 

 Chief executive Anthony Smith said:  

“Passengers tell us that their biggest priority is rail services they can rely on to actually get them to work on time, or home at a reasonable hour. When that doesn’t happen, it impacts the rest of their day.  

 “West Midlands passengers will welcome the additional compensation announced recently – and we urge them to claim everything they can, to send a strong message to the industry and to Make Delay Pay. But ultimately the trains still need to run on time and we want to hear from the operator how it intends to get services back on track.” 

 Transport Focus will use the evidence from the survey as it continues to push for wide-scale reform of the industry, and immediate improvement in reliability for the worst-affected areas.  

 Key West Midlands Trains results:

 

 

 

Notes to editors 

• Media contact – Misha MccGwire misha.mccgwire@transportfocus.org.uk / 0300 123 0821. 
•  Transport Focus is the independent transport watchdog representing the interests of: 
  • rail passengers in Great Britain 
  • bus, coach and tram passengers across England outside London 
  • all users of England’s motorways and major ‘A’ roads (the Strategic Road Network). 

We work to make a difference for all transport users. 

•  We spoke to nearly 28,000 passengers from 2 September to 10 November 2019, and asked them to rate the journey they had just made. Passengers are asked to take part online or on paper, at 700 stations and on board trains across Great Britain. We select enough passengers to be representative of the entire network. Questionnaires are distributed at different times of day and across all days of the week. 

• Nationally more passengers were satisfied overall – 82 per cent, up from autumn 2018 (79 per cent).