RAIL passengers in Scotland are more satisfied with their train service than most Britons, a survey has found.
The poll by consumer champion, Transport Focus, found that almost nine in ten ScotRail passengers are satisfied with their train service.
However, the survey was undertaken while the franchise was still being run by First Group, so does not reveal whether passengers are more or less satisfied since Abellio took over in April.
Serco, who are bidding for the new CalMac ferry contract, also took over the running of the Caledonian Sleeper service at the same time.
Overall, it showed that ScotRail passenger satisfaction in Spring 2015 was seven per cent higher than the average across Britain, with an 87 per cent satisfaction rate for ScotRail compared to 80 per cent for Britain as a whole.
Value for money scored 60 per cent among ScotRail users, compared to 45 per cent on average across Britain.
The only area with a significant decline in satisfaction was the cleanliness of the outside of the train, which scored 74 per cent - down by nine percentage points.
Transport Focus chief executive Anthony Smith said: "There were big changes for Scottish rail passengers this year with new operators for ScotRail and the sleeper service. We worked hard to make sure the new contracts included passengers' needs at the heart - and it's a positive step that Abellio has asked us to provide two extra passenger surveys each year.
"For the first time our passenger survey is built into the contract to monitor how ScotRail is working to improve overall passenger satisfaction and how well it deals with delays. Meanwhile Serco has agreed on a bespoke Caledonian Sleeper passenger survey, putting passengers at the heart of their service."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article