Complaints made about Arriva Trains up 30% in the past year
NEW figures reveal complaints about Arriva Trains Wales have increased by almost 30% in the past year.
Statistics from the Office of Rail and Road for 2017-18 show that Arriva’s Welsh operation, which is responsible for all services on the Wales and Borders franchise, was the sixth-most complained about of the UK’s 24 rail franchises.
There were 66 complaints made for every 100,000 journeys.
There were three “praise comments” from travellers for every 100,000 journeys.
The data used to conduct the survey did not include complaints made via social media.
The company was also the worst among Britain’s train operators in answering complaints within the industry-standard 20-day period, only addressing three in four complaints in that time.
Arriva said the rise in complaints was due to journey cancellations caused by extreme weather.
Head of customer experience at Arriva Trains Wales Barry Lloyd said: “While the volume of complaints has increased, this is largely down to the extreme weather we experienced in the autumn and at the start of the year, which led to unprecedented numbers of cancellations.”
He said the operator was working with the Welsh Government to address the lack of trains as passenger numbers grew, hitting 33.5 million last year.
In October, responsibility for Welsh trains, which Arriva has run since 2003, will pass to KeolisAmey .
Mr Lloyd said the latest National Rail Passenger Survey (NPRS) claimed 80% were satisfied with the provider’s punctuality.
He also said 70% of passengers were happy with the level of crowding.
Of the complaints, 34.7% were about punctuality. The next most common complaint was overcrowding, 12%. Some 92.2% of trains were on time, up marginally on the year earlier.
Bruce Williamson, of campaign group Railfuture, told the BBC: “It’s disappointing when customer service is not up to scratch.
“With some of the problems we’ve been experiencing on the railway the train operating companies can, with some legitimacy, pass the buck and say it’s someone else’s fault.
“But when it comes to basic customer service, like replying to complaints, that’s totally within Arriva’s hands and there’s no excuse for that.
“Undoubtedly overcrowding is a problem pretty much across the network. There is still a shortage of rolling stock – and to some extent that is out of Arriva’s hands because they are allocated rolling stock by the Department for Transport.”
Arriva told the BBC that Storm Emma – when the majority of services were cancelled or affected by delays – resulted in a rise in the number of people complaining about the franchise.