On the right track: how rail is putting customers first

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As long‑standing sponsors of the London Transport Museum’s Interchange thought‑leadership programme, we’re proud to have again collaborated with the Museum to deliver the 2025 Interchange event, delivered alongside with the Rail Delivery Group and Hitachi Rail. This year’s session brought together leaders from across the rail sector to explore one central theme: how the industry can better understand and improve the customer experience.

In this blog, May Li, a trainee solicitor and daily commuter, shares her thoughts and reflections from the event, offering a personal perspective on what customer‑first rail really looks like from the passenger side.

I was pleased to attend this event exploring how the industry can better understand and meet the needs of its customers. Rail Delivery Group were among the organisations at the table and have since published a report capturing the discussions and key findings – Shaping the future of rail through customer insights.  

I use the rail network everyday and, like most commuters, I tend to experience it in a very functional way. I tap in, settle into the routine of the journey and immediately start thinking about the day ahead. I only really notice the journey when something goes wrong and in those moments of frustration, I forget all the times things have run perfectly, or even the occasions when a delayed train worked in my favour by giving me a few extra minutes to reach the platform. So when I attended the Interchange Rail event, I expected to hear about operations and funding especially with the new government budget being announced that same day. What I didn’t expect was just how much the industry cares about the people behind those journeys. The conversations weren’t just about moving passengers efficiently, but about understanding the people who rely on the network every day.

At the event we heard from several speakers before moving into a lively discussion. Listening to the room it was clear that the customer experience is not an afterthought but a central focus across the sector. The conversations focused on how the sector is shifting from simply getting passengers from A to B, to genuinely serving customers and how to better understand their needs, behaviours and the small decisions that shape their travel.

One of the biggest surprises for me was realising just how much insight sits behind even the smallest improvements. I’d always assumed that people choose whatever route is quickest or closest, but the discussion made it clear that customer behaviour is far more nuanced. Confidence, familiarity, accessibility needs and personal preference all influence the choices people make, meaning the “fastest route” is often not the one they take. To better understand these complexities, the Rail Customer Experience Survey is capturing feedback from over 10,000 customers each month, customer experience is now a KPI for Great British Railways and there is a strong push to get industry leadership to engage at customer level. Together, these approaches are helping build a far fuller picture of why people travel the way they do.

I left the event realising that the rail industry cares far more about the customer experience than I appreciated. What looks like a simple daily journey from the outside is supported by an enormous amount of thought and genuine commitment to making the network run better for everyone.

Find out more about London Transport Museum’s Interchange programme and explore our other insights and resources:

• Latest Report: Transport resilience in a changing climate
• Article: Building climate resilience in the age of extreme heat a legal and strategic imperative
• Blog post: Legal perspectives on climate-resilient transport: reflections from the roundtable