This research by Transportfocus aims to understand the extent to which more than 50 potential initiatives could impact on passengers’ satisfaction with their experience travelling by rail. It sits alongside a wider, more strategic piece of work also conducted in 2022 (and described below) which sought to understand what, overall, matters most to passengers when they travel by rail.

The 59 initiatives in this study are designed to be specific things that the railway could potentially implement e.g. CCTV on every train, being able to tap in and out at stations using contactless cards, the ability to see how often a train has been cancelled or delayed when making a booking etc. The research was designed to help inform the railway’s long-term planning and help decision makers understand how impactful different initiatives might be in terms of customer satisfaction. Other factors, such as the cost of implementing them, will be used alongside these findings to help prioritise which of the initiatives, if any, will be progressed. The wider, strategic study “Britain’s railway – what matters to passengers”, sought to understand broader rail passenger needs. The 25 features of the railway assessed in the wider piece were designed to provide an overview of what is most important to people when travelling by rail. So, rather than specific initiatives, it captured the importance of themes such as the reliability and punctuality of trains, and the price and value for money of tickets. These themes were therefore not tested in the study described in this report. In summary, the work reported on in this document looked at what practical, targeted initiatives can be made to improve people’s experience of the railway.