CrossCountry Ranked Worst UK Train Operator Amid Punctuality and Delay Handling Failures
CrossCountry, the Arriva Group-owned train operator, has been instructed to enhance its performance after receiving the lowest scores in a recent passenger survey covering the three months to the end of March.
The watchdog Transport Focus reported that only 72% of CrossCountry’s station stops were made within three minutes of the scheduled time, while 7% of its services experienced outright cancellation. The survey also revealed that 79% of passengers expressed overall satisfaction with the operator, a figure that dropped to 77% concerning punctuality and reliability. Significantly, satisfaction with how the company managed delays stood at a mere 46%.
Transport Focus has explicitly called upon CrossCountry to address issues including passenger experience, persistent delays, insufficient information provision during disruptions, and widespread overcrowding on its services.
In response, Mark Anderson, CrossCountry’s customer and commercial director, acknowledged the need to “do more to deliver the service our customers rightly deserve.” He cited ongoing train refurbishments and a new timetable as efforts towards “transforming” journeys and “delivering better regional connectivity.” However, he conceded that “crowding is a challenge,” with the company purportedly working with “industry partners to explore all possible options to ease this.”
Across all operators surveyed, 87% of passengers reported overall satisfaction, though disabled passengers showed a lower satisfaction rate of 85%. Hull Trains recorded the highest overall satisfaction at 94%, followed by LNER at 93%.
Alex Robertson, Chief Executive of Transport Focus, stated that passenger experience during delays is critical, noting that over nine in ten people report a positive experience if a delay is “handled well,” a figure that plummets to one in four when not effectively managed.
