Transport User Voice – February 2022 – What passengers think of transport

27 January 2022

Our work on travel during Covid-19

How is Covid-19 still impacting how people travel?

In our latest Travel during Covid-19 survey there are signs of improvement on how safe people feel with those who have not used a bus or a train increasingly likely to say that they would feel safe to do so.

On both trains and buses, 88 per cent of people said that they wore a face covering when travelling for the whole of their journey. 72 per cent of people overall agree that they feel safer using public transport with people wearing face coverings.

85 per cent of those who used a train in the last seven days felt safe doing so. 63 per cent of those who haven’t made a journey by train in the last seven days say that they would feel safe making a journey by this mode of transport. This represents a continuing growth in how safe people think trains are since Christmas.

84 per cent of those who used a bus (outside London) say that they felt safe doing so. This is in comparison to 55 per cent of those who haven’t made a journey by bus who say that they would feel safe to do so. As with the perception of safety on trains, results among those who have not used a bus in the last week represent a continuing positive improvement compared with before Christmas.

We’ll be watching to see what impact the latest easing of restrictions has on passengers’ attitudes to travel.

How satisfied are passengers?

In our weekly rail survey, overall passenger satisfaction is 89 per cent.

This week, the first to report on journeys completely outside of the festive period, many measures have fallen back. Notable dips in satisfaction include:

• the frequency of trains is down to 71 per cent from 77 per cent, the lowest since this survey began in September
• the number of people wearing face coverings is down to 65 per cent from 71 per cent
• personal security during the journey is down to 81 per cent from 85 per cent.

In our Bus User Weekly Survey, overall passenger satisfaction has gone down to 85 per cent from 89 per cent last week. Last week satisfaction with most measures had increased. This week, as on rail, many measures have fallen back.

Some significant drops in satisfaction include:

• value for money has fallen sharply to 62 per from 74 per cent last week, the lowest since this survey began in September
• cleanliness of the inside of the bus is down to 77 per cent from 85 per cent last week
• the frequency of buses is down to 65 per cent from 72 per cent last week, the lowest since this survey began in September.

In our latest report we also published additional analysis exploring how satisfaction varies depending on the time of day/day of week the journey was made. Satisfaction on rail is lower for journeys during weekday peak times across most key measures. On bus it is journeys made in the weekday afternoon peak that have the lowest level of satisfaction.

You can explore all of these results and more on our data hub.

 

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