UK Rail Commuters Would Pay Extra for Better Internet Connectivity

A new survey commissioned by the Government’s Department for Transport has examined the value of Internet access to train users, finding that 54% of people perceived the quality of their on-board Internet connection to be poor or intermittent and 49% were dissatisfied with service speeds.

The ‘Mobile connectivity research study‘, which was based off responses from 2,241 individuals via a combination face-to-face surveys, online surveys and panel surveys, found that on-train Internet use was more prevalent than phone calls.

Overall 56% of respondents had used the Internet on the train before being surveyed and a further 9% expected to use it after the survey, while the corresponding figures for phone calls were 34% and 12% respectively. Some 15% connected to the Internet by only using the Train’s on-board WiFi, while virtually everybody else preferred to use a Mobile Broadband (3G or 4G) based connection and a small proportion used a mix of WiFi and Mobile (21%).

As with phone use, Internet use was also more common among business passengers and commuters in the sample, with 73% and 75% having used the internet, or expecting to use it, compared to 58% of leisure passengers. There is also a similarly sized difference by journey length. Some 72% of respondents with a journey length over two hours either used, or were likely to use the internet, compared with 53% of respondents with a journey length of less than 30 minutes.

Interestingly, of the 21% who used WiFi at some point when on board a train, most 79% received it as a free service and just 10% paid extra (costs ranged from +£2 to +£15). Sadly using a train in the United Kingdom is often anything but cheap, yet despite that fact it’s noted how “people in all segments were willing to pay a significant uplift on their fare” (between 9% and 17%) to get a “basic level of Internet provision“, but smaller additional increments to reach the higher levels of service.

However the survey noted that 34% of passengers would not change their on-train Internet usage if the quality improved, while 32% would spend more time on the same applications and 15% would make use of applications that benefited from a better connection.

At this point the survey goes into a lot more detail and becomes harder to summarise. In any case we think there’s a counter argument to be made here, which is that the on-board connectivity should already be delivering a basic level of Internet provision and to do so within the existing pricing structure. Now here’s our own snap poll (results are cached and display may only update once a day).