TTC customer satisfaction was down sharply this summer as malfunctioning air conditioning units on some subway cars made for uncomfortable commutes for many riders.
A new report released by the TTC shows that customer satisfaction dropped from 80 per cent in the second quarter of 2016 to 70 per cent in the third quarter (May to September). Customer satisfaction was also down significantly from the third quarter of 2015 when it was 81 per cent.
The report said that the drop in customer satisfaction was “largely thanks” to the air conditioning issues on Line 2 that at one point affected 20 per cent of the cars on the line.
In fact, the report found that customer satisfaction on Line 2 dropped from 78 per cent in the second quarter to 59 per cent in the third quarter. As a point of comparison, customer satisfaction on Line 1 was only down slightly, dropping from 78 per cent to 75 per cent.
“It is not so much the TTC in general; it is a specific subject, mainly the hot cars which plagued us over what was a very hot summer,” TTC CEO Andy Byford told CP24 on Wednesday. “We knew that customers weren’t happy - I wasn’t happy about it either -and we are taking action now over this winter to get these trains fixed. At the end of the day it would have been odd had the score not dropped.”
Despite the issues with customer satisfaction in the third quarter, the report said that the year-to-date customer satisfaction number is 76 per cent which is consistent with the 77 per cent customer satisfaction rate recorded in 2015.
Byford said the drop in satisfaction in the third quarter is a “setback” but nothing more.
“We will get this back over the next year or so,” he said.
