It’s time to wander back to the wacky world of the British Railway network, with Passenger Focus releasing it’s latest customer satisfaction survey.
And if you’re a Rail company, you won’t care really with the results as you’ve got an iron cast grip on some travel requirements.
Based on a survey of 30,590 Rail Passengers between 1 September and 18 November 2011, only 46% were satisfied their ticket was value for money. This is a drop of 3% from 49% a year ago.
Reasons for the drop seem to be simple from Passenger Focus’s point of view “the impact that tough economic times, coupled with fare rises, are having”
I’m going to use large type font for this, because this needs sarcasm of a high nature here.
REALLY?
It’s taken Passenger Focus this long to work out that people are annoyed with fare rises and in some cases worsening services?
Where’s a rolleyes icon when you need it…
The railways operator mouthpiece – The Association of Train Operators (ATOC) bleats:
“We recognise that value for money scores remain lower than others and the whole industry needs to focus on tackling costs as well as improving services.
“Successive governments have pursued above-inflation fare rises to reduce taxpayer subsidy while ensuring ongoing investment in the railways.
“The industry has already set out plans to cut the annual cost of the railway by £1.3bn a year by 2019 as a way to help limit future fare rises.”
If they were to re-do this survey today, I would strongly suspect another drop thanks to the price rises that hit the network this year.
Meanwhile, whilst overall satisfaction remains constant at 84% network wide, with wide variations through the network such as National Express East Anglia coming in as low as 77%, and Grand Central scoring as high as 95% satisfaction.
On-Time rates have dipped by a single point from 82% to 81%, with South West Trains and Chiltern Railways coming in for criticism for punctuality issues (which your intrepid reporter has been on the back end of – A Chiltern Service from Birmingham to London which as 28 minutes late is not what I’d call an “on-time” service)
Passenger Focus throws out a warning to those train companies who think however they can just ignore this:
“Train companies and Network Rail must keep up a relentless attention on getting trains on time, not only at the end of their routes, but at stations along the way as well.
“Passengers are still paying above-inflation fares rises and have every right to expect the industry to keep its basic promise to get them there on time.”
The full survey is at http://www.passengerfocus.org.uk/news-and-publications/document-search/document.asp?dsid=5356 with a precise at http://www.passengerfocus.org.uk/news-and-publications/press-release.asp?dsid=5357.
It’s in-depth reading, but if you’re on a regional trainline where the service is delayed again, or an Intercity service where you’ve paid £140 return to go to London for the day… the results might ring very true… and a warning to visitors to the UK who want to travel at peak time or try and go somewhere unplanned..
