Passengers have rated the new London Midland rail services for the first time and overall give them an 81% satisfaction rate, the latest independent National Passenger Survey published today has revealed.
This is the first time the survey has fully included London Midland services, as last year's wave of research was done before London Midland, one of the country's newest train companies, came into existence.
Compared to Spring 2007, when the services London Midland now operates were run by other companies, passengers have ranked London Midland higher in several aspects of their service than 12 months ago. The areas of significant improvement according to the passengers are in aspects of their journey such as provision of information at stations, ticket buying facilities, value for money and connections with other services. Overall, passengers gave London Midland a satisfaction rating of 81%.
London Midland Managing Director, Steve Banaghan, says the results are a pleasing start to the franchise,
"It is really great to see that passengers have begun to notice the things that we are working hard to improve. It is very early days, but the results do show us that where we have begun to make the first of our investments - in the quality of the train environment, in making it easier to buy tickets and improving information at stations we have seen significant increases in satisfaction."
London Midland has embarked on a major programme of major investment, committing to spend £300 million on new trains, better stations, improved information and improving car parking, as well as introducing new routes and services from the end of this year.
London Midland has set itself the target of increasing its National Passenger Survey scores significantly over the lifetime of the franchise, with the first target being an 84% satisfaction rating by 2010. The company says the investments are being targeted at the areas that passengers want to see improved including the areas of this survey - such as the station environment, station upkeep and car parking facilities - which saw lower scores than a year ago.
