The Which? report shows less than half of customers are happy with the service.
South West Trains are defending themselves after a recent report revealed that only 45% of customers are happy with their services.
The survey, carried out by Which?, asked 7,400 customers how satisfied they were with the train operator and whether they would recommend the service to a friend. South West Trains came fourth from the bottom in the report.
A spokesperson for the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance, said: “The results of the Which? online poll are based on relatively small sample sizes and only cover a fraction of the 210 million passengers who travel with us each year.
“By comparison, independent watchdog Passenger Focus surveys up to eight times as many people a year. Last month, this independent passenger survey demonstrated that 81% of passengers were satisfied with South West Trains, with only 5% of passengers expressing dissatisfaction with their service.”
However, their autumn 2013 report, titled The National Rail Passenger Survey, also found that over the last year there has been a decline in South West Trains customer satisfaction and train reliability.
One South West Trains customer, Francesca Dinardo (below), said: “It’s fine, the trains are quick for me. I guess sometimes at rush hour, it can be cramped, but it is like that everywhere. I don’t have a problem with it. It’s good.”
Another commuter, David Swift (above), said: “Obviously, if they’ve got signalling problems or there’s an attempted suicide, there’s not much the rail company can do, about that. I’ve found the companies very reliable. If they’re late, it’s no more than a couple of minutes.”
Main image courtesy of Ian Britton, with thanks.
Follow us @SW_Londoner
