Transport User Voice – February 2017 – Commuters continue to bear the brunt of poor performance

30 January 2017

It is perhaps no surprise that our latest twice-yearly National Rail Passenger Survey shows peak hour travellers in London and the South East are suffering from poor performance.

The 35th survey involved questioning 29,000 passengers across Britain last autumn. This time we drilled down into the results looking at peak and non-peak passengers travelling into London. This analysis shows that satisfaction is significantly lower for those passengers that travel into London during peak hours.

Punctuality, value for money and dealing with delays for peak time passengers are particularly low for certain companies: punctuality on Southern at 30 per cent; value for money on Gatwick Express at 12 per cent; and the way Southern deals with delays at 12 per cent.

Results around the rest of the country were disappointing. Overall passenger satisfaction for ScotRail fell seven percentage points to 23 per cent – the lowest autumn figure since 2002. These are disappointing results and somewhat surprising given ScotRail’s previous good performance. Sadly, punctuality – which drives passenger views of the railway – has fallen six percentage points.

Commenting on the ScotRail results, Anthony Smith said:

“Increased passenger numbers are putting extra pressure on the Scottish rail network too, both in its day-to-day operation and during rebuilding. Improvements and investments to the railway to cope with the growth and attract new passengers to rail are welcome.

“Meanwhile, ScotRail Alliance’s performance improvement plan needs to deliver better outcomes for passengers: trains arriving on time, fewer cancellations and carriages of the right length.”

Click here to see the results or explore the results further in our infographic.

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