Almost nine out of 10 railway passengers are satisfied with their journeys, according to the latest survey by Transport Focus.
The new Rail Customer Experience Survey has replaced the former National Passenger Survey. More than 100,000 passengers were invited to respond, and 87 per cent said they were satisfied.
The results cover the period from October 2025 to March this year, although the new survey runs throughout the year.
The most satisfied passengers were those using Hull Trains, which scored 94 per cent satisfaction.
Just behind was LNER, with 93 per cent, followed by Merseyrail, Heathrow Express and ScotRail, with 92 per cent.
The lowest rating came from CrossCountry, where 79 per cent of passengers said they were satisfied.
Transport Focus said it has asked CrossCountry to make improvements, after a period of delays and disruption, which was partly due to long-running industrial action by the RMT last year.
Nationally only 59 per cent of passengers are satisfied that the fares they paid offered value for money and less than half of commuters (49 per cent) are satisfied. Lumo passengers were most satisfied with value for money (75 per cent), while just 49 per cent of Great Northern passengers were satisfied.
Eighty-five per cent of passengers were satisfied with the punctuality of their journey. The latest quarterly figures, for January to March, show that 86.4 percent of trains arrived on time (within three minutes of their booked station stop) while 3.2 percent were cancelled.
Transport Focus chief executive Alex Robertson said: ‘These results show that it’s possible for the railway to get it right, but that this isn’t happening consistently enough. The gap between the worst and best performing operators is striking, and it also shows that disabled passengers are experiencing a worse service than everyone else.
‘What stands out is how much difference handling delays well can make. More than nine in ten people will report a positive experience if a delay is handled well – a remarkably high figure given their train is late – but this falls to one in four when it isn’t. Fixing this is well within the railway’s control and should be a priority, particularly when we know passenger trust in the railway is low.
‘This is the first report of its kind. I’m optimistic the railway understands the importance of using it to create a more customer focused culture and we’ll be holding them to account to make sure they do.’
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