Opinion
In the passenger seat
VALUEfor MONEY? T
By Anthony Smith
he scores are in – 31,000 of Britain’s rail passengers have given their verdict in the latest wave of the bi-annual National Passenger Survey. The result? Satisfaction with Britain’s railways holds up at 83 per cent of passengers satisfied overall with their journey. However, this overall figure masks enormous variations on different routes and widely differing value for money scores. London Midland, Merseyrail and Heathrow Connect all improved significantly. Greater Anglia (previously National Express East Anglia) is well aware of the work needed to boost passenger satisfaction. Overall satisfaction scores on individual routes varied from 97 per cent (Merseyrail – Wirral) to 70 per cent (FCC – Thameslink South and Greater Anglia – Metro) with value for money satisfaction ranging from 75 per cent (ScotRail – Rural) to 23 per cent (Greater Anglia – Mainline) on those routes. The key issue for the future, beyond getting the trains on time and greater capacity, is going to be fares and ticketing. Satisfaction with value for money has dipped to 42 per cent from 44 per cent in spring 2011, despite the government holding regulated fare rises to RPI + 1. Passengers using different tickets give very disparate scores for value for money – compare the views of Advance and Off-Peak ticket holders, who think that the railway is reasonably good value, with season ticket holders who do not. For example, value for money scores for Advance tickets on CrossCountry and Virgin Trains were 64 per cent and 68 per cent, while the scores for Annual Season tickets on Southeastern and South West Trains were 12% and 23% (respectively). Annual season ticket holders, particularly
in London and the south east, despite having regulated fares, unsurprisingly do not think their tickets represent value for money. The industry must keep its focus on getting the trains on time while the government must think very carefully about the forthcoming
‘The key issue for the future, beyond getting the trains on time and greater capacity, is going to be fares and ticketing’
decision on the rate of rises for regulated fares. While the government’s consultation on fares and ticketing was heading in the right direction, and Atoc moves to improve information are welcome, the message from passengers is clear – we have had enough, no more fare hikes.
The introduction of smartcards or,
more importantly, the products loaded on them will help. Flexible carnets, rewards for travelling at quieter times, more information about tickets and more information from the industry about passengers – it is all coming. At last Toc and passenger is about to grow up. Twitter is leading this. Passengers are helping themselves, providing new avenues of feedback and allowing sensible, useful information to be channeled out.
Passenger Focus’s new
report Short and Tweet chronicles how the industry gets it right and wrong in this new frontier territory. London Midlands’ whopping 17 per cent improvement in how they dealt with delays is largely down to Twitter use. We got all the leading industry practitioners together for a seminar. They are pioneers. So unlike the rest of the railway – there’s no rule book and they talk normally, really thinking about what passengers need to
know. Not overfriendly but authoritative. The future happening in front of us.
Anthony Smith is the chief executive of Passenger Focus.
AUGUST 2012 PAGE 13
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