Charley Wallace: “Delivering the railway our customers expect”

Charley Wallace, GBRTT’s customer programme director, writes on the work they’re doing to enhance the experience for passengers across the country not just in the future, but here and now

The evolution in the way we work has fundamentally changed the relationship the railway has with its customers. In a previous blog, we have talked about freight customers so here I will focus on the work the Great British Railways Transition Team (GBRTT) is doing to enhance the experience for passengers across the country not just in the future, but here and now.

The pandemic has given people and businesses more choice, speeding up trends that were starting to develop previously. No longer do thousands of commuters feel they have to travel into the office every day. Instead, more customers are travelling less often or at quieter times of the day.

Particularly during times of disruption, they have the choice to do things differently, by working from home or more locally. On the other hand, there are other trends; for instance, leisure markets are growing, creating new opportunities for the network.

In a world where train travel is far more discretionary, we must up our game to better meet the needs of our customers. In short, we need to offer a more reliable and simpler to use service – at every stage of the journey – and in turn provide better value for money.

For too long our customers have found the railway too complex and difficult to use – voting with their feet in many cases. This must change. By stripping back the layers of complexity around fares, ticket purchase, compensation and many more areas, we can better serve all our customers – creating a simpler, better railway for everyone in Britain. To do this, GBRTT is putting the customer at the heart of planning for the future and getting on with making improvements now, as with our transformational Fares, Ticketing and Retail Programme.

For example, thousands more journeys will transfer to Pay-As-You-Go ticketing, meaning customers can simply tap in and out at the start and end of their journey. From 2024 we will see a significant increase in the number of stations with Pay-As-You-Go, starting initially with an expansion in the South East before introducing this to other urban centres, including in the north where we intend to introduce it at a further 700 stations.

You can read the full blog here.

Photo credit: GBRTT

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