Rail operator serving Hartlepool and Sunderland tops industry's 'most improved' chart

Northern, whose services also stop at Seaham, Horden and Seaton Carew stations, received a third consecutive rise in passenger scores according to research completed by national industry body UKCSI.

Northern scored 72.4 out of 100 in January 2022 compared to 68.6 and 62.5 during 2021 surveys.

That overall rise of 9.9 points compares to a 5.2 point rise across the rail industry at large.

As well as topping the industry’s “most improved” chart, Northern was also named the sixth most improved organisation in the UK from any sector.

Mark Powles, Northern’s commercial and customer director, said: “Everyone at Northern has worked incredibly hard over the past 12 months, in very challenging circumstances, to deliver for our customers and the UKCSI data is testament to those efforts.

"That said, we certainly won’t be resting on our laurels. We have an ambitious and ongoing programme of improvements to our stations, not to mention the roll out of our refurbished digital trains that are out and about on the network.

“Listening to our customers and acting on their feedback is key to our approach and we look forward to building on these scores in the future.”

The UKCSI data is an independent benchmark of customer satisfaction published twice a year since 2008.

It provides a unique way of tracking and comparing customer satisfaction performance across the UK economy.

Based on responses from an online customer panel, UKCSI asks customers to rate their experience of an organisation against 25 metrics.

These include experience, complaints, customer ethos and ethics.

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