High trip satisfaction scores for Te Huia service – survey

The majority of Te Huia passengers are satisfied with their trips and would recommend the service to others.

That’s what Waikato Regional Council’s customer satisfaction statistics show, which were presented at Monday’s meeting of the multiagency Te Huia Train Service Subcommittee.

Five hundred train user surveys were completed between Waikato and Auckland in late May, with passengers asked to provide details about their train journey, how satisfied they were with the service and their views of the overall experience.

The survey found that 94 per cent of passengers were satisfied with their trip, and almost the same again (93 per cent) would recommend Te Huia to others.

“The inaugural survey is consistent with those we undertake annually for our bus services, and the results can help us identify opportunities for continuous improvement over the next 12 months,” said Waikato Regional Council’s Regional Transport Connections Director, Mark Tamura.

“Importantly, it will enable us to establish and monitor trends from the following and subsequent surveys,” he said.

“Most passengers are very satisfied with the train service, but there are some areas we’ve been told we can improve, such as access to and the quality of the Wi-Fi. We also need to look at the volume of the on board audio announcements,” Mr Tamura said.

“The survey also confirms that our short-term improvement plans – more weekday services and Saturday service – are what passengers want us to focus on.”

One of the most pleasing aspects of the survey was that “helpfulness and attitude of staff” was ranked the highest aspect of the trip for passengers, scoring 95 per cent. Mr Tamura said this is a testament to the commitment to providing customer service excellence shared by KiwiRail who employs the crew.

KiwiRail’s General Manager Scenic Journeys and Commuter Rail, Tracey Goodall, said: “KiwiRail is a proud operator of Te Huia and it’s great to see that recognised by the people that ride with us. It’s unusual to get such strong positive results for a public transport service experience, but it’s all in a day’s work for our on-board crew who greet people with a smile at 6am in Hamilton and see them through to Auckland with fantastic coffee, snacks and service.”

For people completing the survey, value for money comes in as the most important service feature for passengers, with 61 per cent ranking this as either number 1 or 2. Service reliability is also an important aspect of the train service, with 42 per cent choosing this as being very important. Station facilities and station quality are not as relevant for a lot of passengers, the survey found.

The overall customer satisfaction score for the service of 83 per cent was lower than the long-term key performance indicator score of 90 per cent, but reflects a solid baseline for the service five months after operations recommenced in January.

The customer survey results have been released at the same time as the passenger numbers for the month of July, which show another record breaking day during the school holidays, with 602 passengers on Friday, 22 July – 34 clear of the next highest day, which occurred during April.

Staff bumped up the carriages for the school holidays to meet the increased demand, with the weekday services running as a five-carriage consist, one more than the usual four, and weekend services running as a six-carriage consist, up from the usual four or five.