East Midlands Trains has been awarded 5 stars by the British Quality Foundation (BQF) in the Recognised for Excellence (R4E) programme.

East Midlands Trains, part of the Stagecoach Group, received the 5 star certification following an extensive week-long assessment covering all areas of the company.  This included face to face interviews with employees at all levels and visits to stations and maintenance depots.

This is the highest level of certification available, and this is the first time that East Midlands Trains been awarded 5 stars.

R4E is part of the EFQM Levels of Excellence, Europe’s leading recognition programme for organisational performance.  The assessor team praised East Midlands Trains for clearly defining customer requirements and ‘exceeding them as a matter of course’ and also commented on the innovative approach taken by the train operator.

David Horne, Managing Director for East Midlands Trains, said:  “We’re extremely pleased to have been awarded with a five star rating for the first time. It’s a clear demonstration of the commitment our employees have made in striving to deliver significantly improved services for our customers.”

Joe Goasdoué, Chief Executive of the BQF, said: ‘With this successful renewal of its R4E certification, East Midlands Trains shows that its performance continues to improve.’

This comes on the back of East Midlands Trains just scoring its best ever customer satisfaction results.  In the most recent independent passenger survey from Autumn 2012, 89% of passengers said they were satisfied with their East Midlands Trains service, representing the highest ever level of satisfaction.  Since the start of the franchise in 2007, there has been a 10% increase in passenger satisfaction – a rate of improvement not bettered by any other train company in the country.

East Midlands Trains has demonstrated a continued commitment to improving services for passengers and from the start of the franchise in 2007 has made some significant improvements:
·      33,000 more trains are now running on time each year than at the start of the franchise
·      The recent passenger survey demonstrates an 18% increase in how well East Midlands Trains deals with delays, the biggest increase of any train operator
·      Every train in the fleet has now been refurbished following a £30 million investment programme.  Delays caused by fleet have reduced by 23% since the start of the franchise.
·      Delivery of an additional 1,500 seats per day on the busy Liverpool-Norwich route
·      Introduced WiFi on all services to London with free WiFi coming at 30 stations this year.
·      Continuing to invest £10 million to improve stations. The latest passenger survey demonstrates that passenger satisfaction with East Midlands Trains stations is higher than any other train operator in the country.