Transport User Voice – November 2021 – Your thoughts on buses and trains

29 October 2021

Our new satisfaction survey

It’s 2019.

You’re on a busy train to work. All around you people are reading, listening to music or staring out the window. You’re hoping the train will be on time, maybe having a bit of a moan about the seats or looking at any rubbish that’s been left on the floor or seats.

Then 2020 happened…

The way we think about public transport has changed and Transport Focus wanted to hear those thoughts.

We’ve launched two new rolling surveys to track levels of satisfaction. Every week, we’re going to be gathering the views of around 500 bus and rail passengers outside London to gauge their satisfaction on a range of matters.

From our latest feedback, we’ve had some valuable insights.

Across both bus and rail, almost nine in 10 passengers were satisfied with their last journey.

Passengers rated how satisfied they were with their overall journey, punctuality, value for money of their ticket along with cleanliness and Covid-related measures.

On buses we found:

• Several key measures saw satisfaction levels above 80 per cent: safety of the driving (88 per cent), availability of seating or space to stand (87 per cent) length of time the journey took (86 per cent) and cleanliness of the inside of the bus (82 per cent).
• 76 per cent of bus passengers were satisfied with service punctuality with 12 per cent dissatisfied.
• 66 per cent of passengers were satisfied with value for money of the ticket.
• Passengers were least satisfied with information on how busy the bus would be, at 53 per cent. This was closely followed by the number of people wearing face coverings at 55 per cent per cent, with almost a quarter actively dissatisfied.

The results were similar on rail:

• passengers were most satisfied with the time their journey was scheduled to take at 90 per cent
• 88 per cent of rail passengers were satisfied with their overall journey
• 85 per cent of passengers were satisfied with how punctual their train was
• almost two thirds (65 per cent) of passengers were satisfied with value for money of the ticket
• passengers were least satisfied with the number of people wearing face coverings at 51 per cent
• 13 per cent were actively dissatisfied with the level of crowding on their train journey.

What passengers say

One bus passenger commented: “Very satisfied, driver was polite. Bus pretty clean and well ventilated.”

Another complained about the cleanliness of their service saying: “Finished night shift, caught bus at 8am, it was late. It was dirty, the alcohol dispenser was empty, there was visible dirt and a build-up of gel all around the dispenser. At least half passengers not wearing masks, coughing and sneezing on bus. No windows were open and when I attempted to open one, I got shouted at by another passenger.​”

A bus passenger reported: “Bus was on time and well ventilated. Would have liked more people to have worn masks.”

 A rail passenger said: “The train arrived on time, it appeared clean, there was accurate information available on the train​.”

Another complained about the crowding on their service saying: “The train was packed. No social distancing and I was the only person wearing a mask. I felt very unsafe.”

Results will be published every week and the data will be made available on our data hub soon.

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