Press releases

Customers across Arriva's UK Bus businesses have given a resounding thumbs up to their services, with 89 per cent of people indicating that Arriva was hitting the mark with local buses.

An independent NOP survey, which in size and scope is unprecedented in the bus industry, covered all aspects of customers' journey experience, from waiting at the bus stop, through boarding the bus and buying a ticket, to the journey itself. Eighty-eight per cent of customers were satisfied with the accessibility of the company's buses and 91 per cent were satisfied with the ease of buying a ticket.

Employees also did well, with NOP indicating that the positive ratings customers surveyed gave to Arriva employees are within the top 20 per cent of companies that NOP has rated.

Arriva says that the research has been highly successful in informing the company which features of the journey experience are most important to its customers, and how well it measures up to people's expectations. The survey follows on from similar research undertaken by NOP in 2003.

Catherine Mason, customer services and marketing director for Arriva's UK Bus division, said:

Clearly we're delighted with the results, and are determined to keep working hard for our customers. We know that to make bus travel more appealing to as wide a variety of people as possible, that we need to keep delivering improvements – and we're committed to doing just that.

We're extremely proud of our employees – our people work very hard to deliver quality bus services and I have to say that these results reflect the hard work they put in.

Bus drivers employed by Arriva are all offered training in customer service and are able to further their training by taking up NVQs in customer care, with full support from the company.

Ends

Notes to editors

• NOP Research Group is part of NOP World, one of the world's largest market research and business information companies, offering both custom and syndicated research, as well as research-based consulting, and analytic CRM services around the world.
• The research was carried out in England, excluding London, in October 2004 and involved over 17,500 people. The survey was based on similar criteria set for the 2003 survey.
• One in four customers surveyed were travelling for shopping, 50 per cent were employed, 17 per cent retired. Eighty-seven per cent used the bus at least once a week and 44 per cent use the bus most days.