With many delays and cancellations throughout the UK, we asked the people of Cardiff how reliable they think public transport is.
A recent study by NIESR highlights that public transport is getting worse than ever before. The decline, highlighted by NIESR, is down to funding cuts and an outdated infrastructure network.
This week there has been major disruptions of railway services between Maesteg and Cardiff Central. Trains between Cardiff and Barry have also been subject to disruption which is currently under investigation.
Many have taken to X (formerly Twitter) to express their concerns with Transport for Wales. One user was outraged by the amount of people standing in the carriages despite paying over £100 on a train ticket. Another user complained about the significant delays and cancellations.
To find out more, we collected the public’s opinion on their experience with public transport.
Steve Gregson, 56, laboratory scientist
“Trains are very unreliable down to the incompetence of the cretins that run the network. The staff are lazy, incompetent, unwilling to provide services after 11pm and before 6am. You might as well walk on your hands and knees to get places.”
Lavinia Sole, 67, retired
“The trains are reasonably reliable. I once travelled to from London Paddington and they decided to stop the train far away from where it was meant to. They did provide a taxi and I got full compensation. The tickets are reasonably priced as long as you pick the right ticket.”
Steven Hughes, 69, retired
“I use the trains daily. Generally it’s quite bad, I tried to get to Barry Island but the trains weren’t running. The information was terrible, the rail people looked confused. I ended up having to walk from Barry to Barry Island.”
Josie Ranson, 32, retail advertiser
“It’a not reliable, it’s shocking there is such a limited amount of services. They need to sort out the infrastructure with more stations in the valleys, more of the budget needs to go into it.”
Maddie Pole, 19, student
“Public transport is not very reliable, it takes a long time to get anywhere and you have got to plan to not be late. One time the bus broke down, so I had to walk 3 miles to get home. There was no bus replacements that I was made aware of, they just left us to it.”
Finn Hishon, 22, student
“40% of the time it’s late because of trouble on the tracks or trains have been redirected. I think trains needs to be more accessible for young people who use trains to visit friends as it’s a big part of keeping in touch, it’s really important for us.”