Nearly 2,000 people take part in the Maritime Line Survey

Maritime Line Survey 2024 Summary of results

The Maritime Line Survey was launched on Friday 4 October and ran for three weeks, finishing on Friday 25th.

The results – 

Many thanks to all those who took part. We had a total of 1,957 responses.

The most came from people who start their journey at Penmere – 23%. Then it was Truro (21%), Penryn (19%), Perranwell (16% – very high response rate, Perranwell accounts for 4% of the line’s passengers), Falmouth Town (12%) and Falmouth Docks (4%).

Unsurprisingly 62% walk to the station. 15% drive and park at or close to the station and 9% get a lift to the station. 4% cycle with most taking their bike on the train

43% of respondents usually travel to Truro with Falmouth Town next at 27%, followed by Falmouth Docks 7% and London Paddington 6%. 78% then walk from the station.

Current users generally gave the service good ratings. Highlights:

Overall satisfaction – 66% good/very good, 27% average, 7% poor/very poor
Frequency of trains – 64% good/very good, 28% average, 8% poor/very poor
Availability of seats – 79% good/very good, 16% average, 5% poor/very poor
Journey time – 81% good/very good, 16% average, 2% poor/very poor

The worst scores were as follows:

Station facilities – 23% good/very good, 41% average, 36% poor/very poor
Shelter & seating on the station – 43% good/very good, 35% average, 22% poor/very poor
Presence of staff – 29% good/very good, 33% average, 39% poor/very poor

Others to highlight

Value for money – 50% good/very good, 34% average, 15% poor/very poor
Reliability of the service – 61% good/very good, 28% average, 12% poor/very poor

All of the questions were multiple choice except for one – Q9 What improvements would you like to see to the line, its service and stations.  People were given the opportunity to put down three improvements.  Two-thirds of those who took part in the survey entered at least one improvement,

It is going to take a long time to analyse all the responses so to get an early view of the top aspirations, 300 of the answers to “Improvement 1” (ie top priority) were selected and analysed. 2 batches of 50 responses and two further ones of 100 were picked. This allowed a good spread of survey completion dates.

The top ten were as follows;

Reliability – fewer cancellations 12%
A new station at Ponsanooth 10%
More shelter at stations 7%
Later trains (esp last train) 6%
All trains to call at Perranwell 6%
More trains 6%
Easier accessibility at all stations 5%
Make Falmouth Town accessible (Platform height & gap) 5%
Cheaper fares 4%
Newer trains 3%

The full spreadsheet will be sent to GWR, Network Rail and Cornwall Council for analysis.

What happens next?
The survey and its results have been discussed at the Maritime Line Stakeholder Forum held on 26 November and there will be further discussions with GWR and other parties about tackling the concerns highlighted in the survey and progressing the improvements requested.

Clearly, some of the improvements sought are necessarily longer term issues and we will find out and post more information here about them.

David Whiteway, Regional Development Manager (West) for GWR said –
“GWR would like to thank everyone who took part in the survey. It has produced some really useful and interesting data and we look forward to working with the Maritime Line Stakeholder Forum and Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership to analyse the results and how they may help shape our future strategy. We agree that train performance is important, especially on branch lines, and we will continue to work with industry partners to reduce delays and cancellations.”