You Said We Did

We are EMR. A rail company dedicated to making sure you have a safe, enjoyable journey – wherever you’re headed.

Your feedback is important to us and plays a crucial role in the way we shape and develop our services. Here are just a few examples of how your feedback has helped us improve what we do.

“Please sort out your toilets on train, the smell was so bad that it was drifting down into the First Class carriages. There was no soap, the bin lid was broken so the bin mess was strewn over the floor. It’s like East Midlands doesn’t care.”

Customer who travels from Derby – London St Pancras

48% customer satisfaction with on train toilets

On train toilets were always a poor performing area for us in both our own surveys and national surveys. Cleaning was done at depots but couldn’t seem to keep on top of keeping them fresh during the day. Customer feedback told us that the main points were that the toilets weren’t dirty but they didn’t smell very nice, the hand towels were rough and of poor quality and at certain times of the day during the peak they could get very messy. On train toilets are one of EMR’s top drivers to overall satisfaction, making an improvement was a matter of urgency.

What we did...

  • Increased the amount of times the tanks were descaled helping immediately with the smell
  • We introduced air fresheners through gel scents
  • Upgraded the hand towels (which were also biodegradable)
  • Introduced in-transit cleaners who hop on and hop off trains, cleaning toilets in the very busy times
  • Installed a more luxurious soap in the dispensers

New Score

69% satisfaction with on train toilets

“I’ve really noticed an improvement in EMR toilets, gone is the stale smell and grotty green towels, you can tell you have really made an effort.”

Customer who travels from London St Pancras – Sheffield

Customers were unhappy with the late running of this service as it was getting stuck behind slow running trains. It meant that some customers missed their London train connection in Derby. The train was also too crowded and uncomfortable.

What we did…

When we were able we retimed other trains to let this train have priority, we have increased the amount of seats available and re-platformed the train at Derby to the same one as the London service – helping customers make their connection.

Customers are now a lot happier on this train and have scored us, on average 15% more in satisfaction.

Our trains have a good clean each night but at busy times in the day they can get messy and in need of a clean. With our trains having really tight turnarounds at stations there was not enough time for our people to clean the trains.

What we did…

We introduced some super hero cleaners who jump on and off our services to give them a spruce and a clean and a general tidy up. They remove litter, clean the loos and wipe any surfaces that need a good going over. This happens in our peak busy times and makes all the difference.

Since we have introduced the in-transit cleaners we have seen our on train cleanliness scores increase by an average of 10%