Annual passenger complaint levels at Arriva’s UK train operations reduced significantly

18-4-2013 — /europawire.eu/ — Latest independent figures have revealed that annual passenger complaint levels at Arriva’s UK train operations have reduced with one of the group’s businesses achieving a 90 per cent reduction over the past six years.

Data published by the Office of Rail Regulation show that Arriva Trains Wales has reduced the number of passenger complaints received (per 100,000 passenger journeys) from 336 in 2007/08 to 34 in 2011/12.

Arriva’s other rail businesses have also seen welcome reductions in overall annual passenger complaints over the past six years.

(*Numbers are per 100,000 passenger journeys)

Steve Murphy, chief operating officer of Arriva UK Trains, said: “Every year across the UK we operate more than 900,000 services and deliver more than 92 million passenger journeys, so to see overall passenger complaints reducing is welcome news for us and our passengers.

“We have made significant investments to improve performance, station and ticketing facilities and rolling stock in our businesses. Also, when services don’t go to plan our people work incredibly hard to minimise the impact and get our customers to their destination as quickly as possible.

“We recognise there is always more to do and we remain focused on bringing further improvements across our businesses to help further reduce the figures – but this is a welcome step in the right direction.”

Notes to editors:

• The latest ORR data was published on 28 March 2013.
• Arriva UK Trains operates Arriva Trains Wales, Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, Grand Central Railway and London Overground (LOROL – a joint venture with MTR). It also operates light rail operator Tyne and Wear Metro.
• *London Overground is a 50/50 joint venture between Deutsche Bahn (DB) and MTR Corporation. DB’s interest is managed by Arriva – DB’s division responsible for regional passenger transport outside of Germany.
• **Chiltern Railways passenger complaints remained level in 2011/12 even though the company introduced major changes to its network which resulted in numerous line closures while infrastructure was being introduced and replaced for its new Chiltern Mainline services. The company also introduced a completely new timetable in the same year.

Example of how Arriva companies work to improve their services for customer include:

Investment in technology: Chiltern Railways has made ticketing easier for passengers. It was the UK’s first rail operator to launch a mobile ticketing app which allows customers to buy and display tickets and scan the barcode on their mobile phone to pass through station gates;CrossCountry rolled out an industry-leading seat reservation facility on all main routes so passengers can reserve their seat via mobile phone up to 10 minutes before the train leaves the station; and in the past 12 months Arriva Trains Wales has invested in new real-time customer information screens at more than 80 of it stations and the business is set to invest a further £1.1 million this year in new card-only ticket vending machines.

Innovation: Arriva Trains Wales has responded to continued growth in passenger numbers by using innovative train planning to deliver some 465,000 extra seats annually from the limited number of trains allocated to the franchise; Chiltern Railway’s £250 million Evergreen route upgrade project, which created the Chiltern Mainline, is delivering greatly improved journey times from the West Midlands to London and 33.6 per cent more passenger journeys; and our open access business.

Performance: Since the start of LOROL’s concession, a joint venture operated under contract for Transport for London (TfL), passenger journeys have more than quadrupled to 400,000 a day; 97 per cent more trains operate on the network; services operated have increased by 169 per cent; and some 97 per cent of trains arrive within their booked time. For the fourth year running,CrossCountry has won a Golden Spanner award for operating one of the most reliable train fleets in Britain. Its Voyager 220 trains outperformed all other intercity fleets in the UK.

Investment in trains: CrossCountry has invested more than £40 million in growing and improving its fleet with all 91 of its trains fully refurbished; Chiltern Railways has invested £27 million in trains to increase capacity on its network; and Arriva Trains Wales has invested in refurbishing its fleet of Class 175 and Class 153 train in addition to a £7.5 million train refurbishment programme on behalf of the Welsh Assembly Government to provide improved on-board facilities on its Class 158 trains.

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