The Rail Delivery Group is conducting the largest survey of passengers ever undertaken into their views on Britain’s railway network.

The aim is to survey 130,000 passengers a year, or approximately 10,000 each month, on their views of the railway network, their experiences, their views on their journeys, and what could be improved. Results of the survey will be available to view on an interactive online dashboard, with the first set of results expected this autumn.

Passengers’ views will go towards helping train operators improve their day-to-day service for passengers and help the railway industry make decisions on how Britain’s rail services can be improved.

The survey is twice the size of the National Rail Passenger Survey, which it replaces, and will be an ongoing project with no planned end date.

Covering the entire rail industry, it will, for the first time, bring together previous industry-level surveys, with new methodology able to pinpoint the trains respondents are travelling on. By gathering the everyday experiences of passengers, it will provide a common framework on which the whole railway industry can measure passenger satisfaction, whilst the results will provide new, universal benchmarks for comparison across all of Britain’s railway network.

The survey is a collaboration between the Rail Delivery Group, the Department for Transport, Network Rail, Transport Focus, and the Customer and Revenue Growth team, previously part of the Great British Railways Transition Team.

Laura Shoaf, Chair of Shadow Great British Railways, commented that the launch of this survey marks a significant step forward for Britain’s railways.

It will put customers at the heart of everything we do, and by talking directly to 10,000 passengers every month while they travel will provide an unprecedented understanding of passengers’ experiences.

During the transition towards establishing Great British Railways, it will identify what’s working well, and ensure best practices are shared across the entire network so that all passengers benefit from consistent, high-quality service.

As well as the National Rail Passenger Survey, other surveys regularly seek passengers’ views, including the “Experiences of Passenger Assist” survey conducted by the Office of Rail and Road.

“It’s critical that we listen to what passengers tell us are the most important areas to improve upon when it comes to the experiences they are having across the rail industry. The new survey is going to do exactly that, by providing a significant increase in the amount of feedback we hear. This can only be a good thing, and will help us all to remain focused on delivering improvements to the passenger experience. As well as publishing our quarterly scorecard highlighting how operators are performing across a number of industry metrics, we will be producing a 6-monthly official statistics report starting in May 2026.”

Natasha Grice, Director at the independent watchdog Transport Focus