Improving the quality of the door-to-door rail journey: a customer-oriented approach

In order to improve the position of the railways, the journey should be made more attractive compared with competing modes such as the car. In doing so, adopting a customer-oriented approach is very important. Such an approach implies a focus on the subjective experience of the passenger rather than on the objective quality, and a focus on all elements of the door-to-door rail journey rather than only the rail trip itself. This study provides an analysis of the customer experience of various dimensions of the door-to-door rail journey on Dutch railways. Travel comfort and time reliability are found to be the two most important dimensions of the journey. Travel time reliability deserves more attention as the satisfaction is very low. Infrequent rail travellers are in general more satisfied, attach more importance to accessibility and travel time reliability, and less importance to travel comfort. Travellers with car availability are on average slightly more satisfied than captive rail passengers. Compared with other passengers, those under twenty years old attach less importance to the rail trip itself and more to the elements related to the other segments of the door-to-door journey, i.e. station access and transfer point. Customer satisfaction had increased in the 2001-2005 period. Elements related to the rail trip itself have become less important during this period while elements related to station access and transfer have increased in importance.