The survey covers the six-month period ending June 2013, and returned consistently high satisfaction ratings across all key performance indicators:
- Speed and convenience, 94 percent
- Safety and Security, 95 percent
- Cleanliness, 94 percent
- Train punctuality, 95 percent
- Bus punctuality, 91 percent
- Comfort, 93 percent
- Value for money, 91 percent
Bombela CEO, Andre van Rensburg, said, “We are delighted to have once again received such high satisfaction ratings from our customers. We don’t however take this endorsement for granted, rather we are inspired to maintain and continually improve our standards.”
Bombela also reported average train punctuality for the quarter ending June of 99.0 percent. During the same period fewer than two incidents per million passengers of property crime were recorded with zero incidents relating to physical harm to passengers.
By way of comparison, a 2011 survey conducted by The Gallup Organization, on behalf of the European Union’s Directorate-General Mobility and Transport, and covering 25 European Union states, found that 82 percent of rail passengers in the European Union said they were satisfied with their personal security on board trains.
Just 56 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the cleanliness of railway carriages. When asked about the punctuality and reliability of trains in their country, only 66 percent of passengers were satisfied.