Rail Union, RMT, has called for Arriva to be stripped of its Northern franchise as new survey results are revealed.
RMT has called Arriva ‘the basket case’ and wants routes in the north to be returned to public ownership.
In the Transport Focus survey, Northern was beaten to the bottom spot by only Govia Thameslink’s Great Northern.
The Transport Focus survey shows that passenger satisfaction with rail services overall has fallen to a 10-year low, overall satisfaction with rail services was 79 per cent, the lowest level since 2008.
RMT says that the figures, which also show that satisfaction on Scotrail has dropped to a 16 year low, reinforce the national campaign for the entire network to be taken under direct control.
What did the officials say?
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said:
“These figures are a disgrace and show that privatised rail services on failing Chris Graylings watch have sunk into terminal decline. This greedy bunch of private operators are mugging off the British people and laughing all the way to the bank while passengers are paying the highest fares in Europe to travel on overcrowded and unreliable services. The whole lot should be swept away and it is no wonder that over 70% of the public now support RMT’s campaign for public ownership.
“The usual suspects are propping up these league tables and it is no wonder that German-owned Arriva are looking to offload the toxic Northern franchise in a fire sale to the highest bidder. The Arriva Rail North services are rotten at the best of times and no one should forget that it’s the companies cash-led assault on passenger safety that has forced RMT members to engage in a campaign of action in defence of a safe, accessible and secure railway for all.
“There’s an easy solution, end this privatised racket and run our rail services as a public service in the public interest and that goes for Scotrail as much as it does for anywhere else.”
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Responses
RMT dictating again!!!
The truth about all the strikes is THEY ARE NOT TAKING GUARDS OFF TRAINS….they just want the driver to operate the doors at stations to avoid delays. RMT are scaremongering the staff and the passengers. The arriva rail north RMT man is Mickey Thompson….lets hope the staff never ask him for help as he is in the Managers pocket. Stop following the sheep and listening to all the lies. Ok Northern is a terrible company who cares zero about staff and customers but RMT are worse!!!
Hooray finally about time. But very late considering Northern already introducing new trains to be entering service this year which I think Northern won’t be stripped. Unless they come up with a plan to continue as a train operator and not introduce more strikes.