Britain’s most HATED transport firms: Southern Rail and Stagecoach Wales top table of worst-performing train and bus companies based on customers’ social media comments
- The data was collected from 3.2 million tweets sent by passengers over a year
- Southern Rail least popular train company as 72 per cent of tweets were negative
- Around 300,000 passengers travel on 2,242 Southern services every weekday
- Stagecoach Wales worst-rated bus company with 72 per cent of tweets negative
Southern Rail and Stagecoach Wales are the most hated travel companies in Britain, based on an analysis of angry tweets from millions of passengers.
There were 3.2 million tweets about UK travel companies sent by passengers between May 31, 2018 and June 1, 2019.
Southern Rail attracted 107,262 tweets, with 72 per cent being negative and just 28 per cent positive.
When it came to buses, Stagecoach Wales was tweeted about 9,012 times in the period and had the same positive to negative split.
On the other hand, the Caledonian Sleeper was the most popular train service, with 76 per cent of tweets being positive.
The data was compiled by Tempcover.
Most hated train firm Southern Rail attracted 107,262 tweets, with 72 per cent being negative and just 28 per cent positive
East Yorkshire Motor Services, tweeted about 4,659, was the most popular bus company with 75 per cent of mentions being positive.
Southern Rail covers the areas of London, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Kent, as well as Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire.
Around 300,000 passengers travel on 2,242 Southern services every weekday, including busy commuter routes from Sussex to London Victoria.
In December 2016, the company hit the headlines after a series of strikes which affected nearly 1 million passengers.
The shutdown across the south of England was the worst disruption since a strike by signal workers in the 1990s
Stagecoach Wales services is the largest bus provider in Wales and covers areas such as Cardiff and south east Wales.
Other destinations include Blackwood, Caerphilly, Bargoed, Pontypridd, Cwmbran, Brecon, Brynmawr and Merthyr Tydfil.
Stagecoach Wales was tweeted about 9,012 times with 72 per cent of them being negative
On the other hand, the Caledonian Sleeper was the most popular train service with 76 per cent of tweets being positive
Other train services with a high proportion of negative tweets include Great Northern with 72 per cent, Thameslink with 70 per cent and South Western Railway with 69 per cent.
The London Underground attracted the most tweets with 329,648. 57 per cent of those were negative.
For buses, 70 per cent of tweets about The Potteries Buses and Arriva Shires & Essex were negative.
The most tweeted about bus company was First Bus Bristol, Bath and the West, which had 69 per cent negative mentions.
A spokesperson for Stagecoach told MailOnline:
‘This data does not match our own social media monitoring which actually shows that 75% of social media activity relating to Stagecoach Wales has positive or neutral sentiment. In addition, the most recent bus passenger satisfaction survey found that 90% of our customers in Wales are satisfied overall with their bus service.’