UK passengers are more satisfied
with their train service than many of their European neighbours, according to a
report from 2013 - although this data is now a little old. But this doesn't
necessarily reflect the actual quality of the service. UK trains are similarly
punctual to many major Western European countries. They are more heavily used
and more expensive, however.
Amid the chaos, Robert Nisbet,
director of the rail companies' membership body the Rail Delivery Group, told
BBC 5 live that the UK's railways were the "envy" of Europe.
"We're a hugely successful
railway in many ways - much more so than many countries in Western Europe who
would only dream about having our kind of performance and punctuality
records," he said.
He was referring to a European
Commission report, published in 2013, which compared customer satisfaction with
rail services across 26 EU countries - excluding Cyprus and Malta which do not
have national or regional trains.
Looking at overall customer
satisfaction with rail services, the UK came second only to Finland.
The European Commission's
directorate of mobility and transport interviewed 26,034 respondents aged 15
years old or more from different social and demographic groups.
They were asked questions about
how satisfied they were with things like the punctuality and reliability of
services, frequency of trains, stations and facilities on the trains including
toilets.
Looking only at satisfaction with
the punctuality and reliability of trains, the UK did a little worse, coming
fourth. But for frequency of trains, it came out top.
However, this report - the most
recent European comparison available - dates from 2013 and so does not capture
any recent disruption, including Northern Rail's cancellations and Southern
Rail's recent strike action.
Rail industry 'has failed passengers'
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launched
Reality Check: When is a train on
time?
Satisfaction ratings also don't
necessarily tell you how good a service is in reality.
Despite passengers being far more
satisfied, more recent research, also from the European Commission, found the
punctuality of UK trains was similar to its European neighbours.
UK trains were on time about 90%
of the time, compared with 91% in France and 93% in Germany - although the
countries' definitions of "on time" vary. The least punctual trains
were in Hungary and Croatia.
A far higher proportion of UK
trains were cancelled than in Germany or Spain, and a similar proportion were
cancelled in France and Italy.
The UK has experienced much
greater growth in passenger numbers and reduction in government subsidy than
Germany, France or Italy - and costs for passengers have risen faster too.
The European data provides a
useful snapshot, but it is not up-to-date enough to reflect recent changes to
rail services.
The latest UK data we have comes
from independent watchdog Transport Focus and was gathered between 15 January
and 28 March 2018 - so it is much more recent, but still does not capture the
changes to Northern Rail's services, which began in May.
The watchdog's National Rail
Passenger Survey found overall satisfaction with train services had slightly
declined in the past year, having increased from the year before.
But it also revealed massive
variation between different train lines, with satisfaction ranging from 69% to
95% across the country.
The lowest ratings for overall
satisfaction were given to some of the biggest franchises, including Southern,
TfL Rail and Great Northern.
Northern Rail came 21st out of the
26 companies with an 80% overall satisfaction rate - only above:
Great Northern (78%)
Greater Anglia (76%)
South Eastern (75%)
Southern (69%)
TFL (68%)
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