Can the TransPennine Express get itself back on the right track now?

TRANSPENNINE Express has been the subject of a slew of negative headlines following a spate of winter cancellations.

Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh has gone as far as to call for the removal of its contract – claiming the service has “never been worse”.

While the criticisms have been particularly strong in the past few months, data from YouGov BrandIndex shows that the service has been deteriorating in public esteem for more than a year.

Since 1 January 2022, Impressions of TransPennine Express, which measure overall positive and negative sentiment, have fallen from 3.7 to -3.9

Stephan Shakespeare

(-7.6). As of 29 January 2023, metrics tracking the brand’s perceived quality declined from 2.7 to -3.9 (-6.6), while Value scores declined by 5.8 points (from -3.0 to -8.8).

Negative headlines around shareholder payouts, levels of sickness, and software faults have also contributed to Buzz scores falling 5.8 points since January 2022 (from 0.2 to -5.6).

With Satisfaction scores worsening from 3.9 at the start of 2022 to -1.2 as of our most recent data (-5.1), the raft of cancelled services have left customers increasingly unhappy with the railway company.

TransPennine Express managing director Matthew Golton has apologised for the recent service, acknowledging that it “isn’t good enough”. Whether he can turn things around remains to be seen and may be a tall order indeed.

Stephan Shakespeare is the co-founder and CEO of YouGov

How

YouGov Brandindex: Impression and Quality scores - TransPennine Express (4 week moving average)