Commuters give thumbs up to 'improving' First Great Western

Rail passengers believe First Great Western is improving in the Thames Valley and London with 82 per cent saying they are happy with the service.

Results of the National Passenger Survey, carried out by independent rail watchdog Passenger Focus in November last year, show a two per cent rise in satisfaction compared with the previous year. It is a 10 per cent improvement since 2007.

FGW managing director, Mark Hopwood, said he was proud of the 'fantastic' results and said although the company was showing improvements there was still a lot of work left to do: "We have lots of exciting plans for 2010 and are confident that the current £8million refresh of our turbo train fleet in the London and Thames Valley, which will be finished by March 2012, will increase our customer satisfaction figures even further," he said.

Passengers listed information, station cleanliness, helpfulness of staff, ease of buying tickets, and how the company responded to delays as reasons for their satisfaction.

On average over the past 12 months 92.14 per cent of services arrived on time, up three per cent on the previous year, while in London and the Thames Valley 93.87 per cent of trains ran on time.