Passengers Satisfaction with Commuter Rail: A Case Study of Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region

Researching the perceived quality of public transport services is of key importance, as passenger experience determines the choice of transport mode. The article presents the results of passenger satisfaction surveys with the use of commuter rail, carried out directly during the journey. The differentiation of ratings for different operators in the Ruhrarea, where the public transport authority is the Rhine Ruhr transport union (VRR), was discussed. The subject of the analysis was to capture the variability of data across the last six years for the nine most important aspects of the quality of the offer. The validity of collective tests of all lines and separate tests for individual operators has been proven to reveal the actual changes in general level of passenger satisfaction and distinguished categories of quality parameters. Staff, information availability and security were rated the highest. The punctuality rating deteriorated the most and the cleanliness rating improved. The role of the paper is to disseminate data characterizing the functioning of commuter rail in a selected agglomeration as a reference point for assessing passenger railway in other regions.