The Ticket Collector

National Passenger Survey - FCC responds

“We have not done well, and are very dissapointed with the results as we know that many people have worked hard to deliver improvements in the last year.
“All this hard work is not wasted as we know that if we continue to address the issues of performance, safety and capacity as well as making investments in customer facilities the results will improve.
“We believe we have the right plans for this business and you have a role to play in helping implement our plans. We want all our customers to know about the improvements we are making, please ensure you are up to date with these improvements for your area.”

“We acknowledge that the results do not meet our expectations and that we are dissapointed. It is clear that customers are telling us that they expect more improvements quickly and we are committed to meeting these expectations
“First Capital Connect has been working hard over the last 12 months to improve reliability, capacity and train and station facilities for our customers, Our franchise is for 9 years and our plans will deliver over time - there are no instant answers.
“FCC has always listened to our customers, and it is very clear to us from these results the areas where our customers want improvements. We are happy that our plans will deliver improvements over time.
“We will be continuing our programme of investment and improvements going forward. By 31st March 2007 we had invested £16.3m across our stations and trains and in this coming year we will be spending a further £27.9m.”

“It is worth remembering that at this time [the time the survey was done] we were experiencing some very poor performance on the routes, the winds at the end of January, problems with overhead wires on GN and some very poor Network Rail performance on the TL route. All of which could have impacted customer views.”