How do drivers rate our roads?

22 February 2017

How satisfied are users of England’s motorways and major ‘A’ roads?

Transport Focus has reached an important stage in developing a new way of measuring road user satisfaction on England’s motorways and major ‘A’ roads.

After extensive stakeholder engagement and testing of the survey questions, our new Strategic Roads User Survey (SRUS) goes into large scale piloting in March. From then we will be testing a number of options to determine the best way to assess road user satisfaction with Highways England’s roads.

Among the options we are piloting is an innovative collaboration with the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA) to deliver an entirely digital survey. DVLA will invite a sample of driving licence holders to take part in Transport Focus’s survey. Road users will be steered, using online interactive mapping, towards the Highways England element of their last journey and asked to provide feedback on various aspects of their experience.

The new survey will be used by the Office of Rail and Road to judge whether Highways England is delivering the right level of customer service, replacing the current measure provided by the National Road User Satisfaction Survey (NRUSS).

The new survey will provide a much richer picture of road user satisfaction than is currently available, including down to individual roads, enabling Highways England to focus more specifically on what needs to be improved and where.

In the summer Transport Focus will assess the results of the pilot and, in consultation with the Department for Transport, the Office of Rail and Road and Highways England, finalise the method to be used when the new survey goes live in early 2018.

There will then be a period of dual running between the new SRUS and the old NRUSS before the latter is discontinued.

Look out for further updates in Transport User Voice later in the year.

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