working hand-in-hand with its patrons
Award-winning rail operator proud 100,000 of its service listeners every week in Essex
RADIO Essex has reported a busy beginning of the year, boosted by the latest audience figures just published by RAJAR for Q4 2019.
TRENITALIA c2c is the awardwinning train operator running services between London and South Essex. Its trains run to and from Fenchurch Street in the heart of the City of London, and serve major towns including Basildon, Grays and Southend. c2c holds the all-time UK records for overall punctuality across a single month and an entire year, and more of its trains arrive on time (within 60 seconds) at each station than any other train company in the country. c2c has been owned by Italian-based Trenitalia since 2017. One of Europe’s leading rail operators, Trenitalia operates the flagship Frecciarossa high-speed trains and domestic and international services in Italy, France and Greece. As well as owning c2c in the UK, last year Trenitalia started running the new Avanti franchise in partnership with First Group. Operating on the West Coast Main Line out of Euston, its long-distance services link London with Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. As well as its record on punctuality, customer satisfaction scores with both frequency and journey times are among the highest of all London commuters. It was the first company in the country to introduce Smartcards alongside the
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old-fashioned paper tickets. It was also the first train operator to offer automatic compensation to customers when things do go wrong. Every c2c customer is entitled to 25% of the cost of their journey back if their train is delayed by 15 minutes. It goes even further with customers who travel on its Smartcards, who are entitled to compensation if their train is as little as two minutes late. It also offers FlexiSeason tickets, designed to appeal to part-time workers or people who travel occasionally to London on business. FlexiSeasons provide a digital carnet of 10-day return tickets, which you can buy upfront for a discounted price, and they remove any need to queue at the ticket office on the day. These undated tickets can be used whenever you choose to travel and are simply deducted automatically from your account when you tap your Smartcards on the ticket gates. FlexiSeasons also offer an additional discount if you use them on an off-peak train rather than travelling at the busiest time. As well as helping local people to work in London but live and spend their salaries in Essex, c2c is instrumental in supporting visitors to Essex. It is one of the largest promoters of the county as a destination, advertising the attractions of Southend and Leigh-on-Sea to millions of Londoners. This isn’t only aimed at
The figures reveal a massive increase in the number of hours spent listening to Radio Essex, from 475,000 to 556,000 hours. This is a record all-time high and means adverts will be heard more often by the same people, helping boost a company’s recognition. The figures also reveal 8,000 new listeners at breakfast, 49,000 new listeners during the workday and 10,000 new listeners at drivetime. All these RAJAR figures are measured year on year against Q4 2018. The station has also secured Martin & Su for its breakfast show, which started in January. Martin & Su’s official figures from RAJAR won’t be available until May this year but if you look at the comparison from digital-only listeners from Jan 19 and Jan 20 using streaming data, you can see what a difference they have already made: Jan 2019, 12,948 unique listeners and Jan 2020, 51,663 unique listeners.
promoting tourism. With Essex’s renown for supporting enterprise and business already well-established, it aims to provide the reliable and quick links with the capital that make it even more attractive for businesses to relocate to Essex. Supporting economic growth in Essex in this way is good news for the company, its passengers and for all local businesses. That’s why it is proud to work with Essex Chambers of Commerce as one of its Patrons, and to support all its excellent work helping local people do business successfully in Essex.