Understanding rail passengers – the average commuter

26 July 2013

The National Passenger Survey (NPS) run by Passenger Focus provides a detailed picture of passengers’ journey experiences, but cannot address every topic of interest to the industry.

This series of occasional reports aims to fill some of these gaps in our knowledge through additional analysis or separate ad hoc survey research.

In this report we look at the ‘average’ commuter – does he or she exist and how does he/she act in terms of rail commuting behaviour?

To help get a better understanding of passenger behaviour – including weekend commuting – we undertook additional analysis of NPS data as well as specific research into commuting habits, looking at the demographic profile of commuters, the work they do, when they travel, and the tickets they use.