A major national survey of tram passengers has recorded high satisfaction levels amongst users of the Midland Metro.

The first ever Tram Passenger Survey by influential transport watchdog Passenger Focus saw 92 per cent of people using the line between Birmingham Snow Hill and Wolverhampton give the thumbs-up in terms of overall satisfaction. This compares favourably with other recent Passenger Focus surveys which found that 88 per cent of bus and 83 per cent of rail passengers in the Centro area were satisfied with their journey.

A total of 87 per cent of Midland Metro passengers were satisfied with the punctuality of the service, and less than one in ten (seven per cent) experienced some delay to their journey.

The Midland Metro is run by Centro, the region’s transport authority and operated by National Express UK Bus. Paul Griffiths, Metro programme director for Centro, said: “It is great to see how highly passengers rate their experience of using Midland Metro, particularly when we are in the middle of a major project to expand the fleet and extend the route. Our new fleet of modern trams will make a huge difference to passengers and hopefully give even higher satisfaction by the time of next year’s survey.”

Peter Coates, Managing Director of National Express UK Bus, added: “It is great to see that 92 per cent of our Midland Metro customers are satisfied with our service. However these results are not the end of the road for Metro improvements in the West Midlands, they just prove we are on the right track. Over the next 12 months we will be improving our service further by extending our route and bringing £40 million of new trams into service.”

A new £40 million fleet of Urbos 3 trams will begin running on the Metro from this summer.They are a third bigger than the Metro’s existing trams, carrying around 210 passengers compared to 156 on the current T69 model. This, together with a frequency of ten trams an hour, will increase overall capacity by 40 per cent, easing the overcrowding that sometimes occurs during peak times as a result of the Metro’s popularity.

They form part of the £128 million Metro extension from Snow Hill to New Street now being constructed through Birmingham which, when completed in 2015, is expected to create more than 1,300 new jobs and boost the regional economy by more than £50 million a year.

The survey questioned 566 passengers on the Metro last autumn, part of a total of 5,250 tram passengers nationally. Other areas surveyed were the Blackpool tramway, Manchester Metrolink, Nottingham Express Transit and Sheffield Supertram.

Across all five networks, overall satisfaction for the tram journey was high (90 per cent).This compares favourably to the same measure on the National Rail Passenger Survey (83 per cent) and the Bus Passenger Survey (88 per cent).

David Sidebottom, Passenger Focus acting chief executive, said: “I am delighted that we are publishing this first Tram Passenger Survey to add to our family of passenger satisfaction surveys. This will enable operators and transport authorities to learn from the results and identify where they might make improvements.

“Passengers were asked to suggest improvements for their tram service. This included fewer delays and cheaper tickets. These results provide focus for our conversations with the tram operators and authorities to guide improvements.”

The full survey and report can be viewed at the Passenger Focus website.