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Thursday 28 Jan 2016

Birmingham New Street station users show their love as customer satisfaction levels rise

Region & Route:

| North West & Central

Passengers using Birmingham New Street are significantly happier with their station experience, according to the latest National Rail Passenger Survey.

Between spring 2015 and autumn 2015, following the opening of the newly redeveloped station in September, customer satisfaction rose from 66% to 81, reflecting the huge benefits delivered by the station’s redevelopment.

A key part of Network Rail’s Railway Upgrade Plan, the redeveloped Birmingham New Street station now boasts a concourse five times the size of the original 1960s station and is flooded with natural light with a plethora of new shops and facilities.

Patrick Power, Network Rail station manager, said: “It’s great that passengers are increasingly enjoying the experience of coming to the new Birmingham New Street station and my team work hard every day to try and make sure that we deliver excellent service to passengers. We’re always looking for ways to improve people’s journeys and these results demonstrate that we’re moving in the right direction.

“Back in 2010 when we started to rebuild the station, passenger satisfaction was down at 61%, so it’s great to see it jump to 81% today. The current figures still include passenger experience from before the new station opened so we hope to see passenger satisfaction rise even further as passengers get to know the station even better.”

Nationally, the survey shows that a slight increase in overall rail passenger satisfaction to 83 per cent across the country has started to reverse previous declines. However, the overall score for commuter satisfaction was 76 per cent, compared to 85 per cent for business and 90 per cent for leisure travellers.

The survey, carried out by independent watchdog Transport Focus, asked more than 28,000 passengers nationally for their views on the railway.

The full results of the survey can be found here.