A quarter of regular users of the Isle of Wight Floating Bridge have rated the council-run service as poor.
A further 1-in-5 passengers think the Medina River link, between Cowes and East Cowes, is below average.
A survey was sent to chain ferry saver card holders (those who are most likely to use it regularly and get a discounted ticket price), between July and September.
Among the feedback received were comments about how the service could be improved, including operating to a fixed timetable; a new app or text service; email updates; and a faster turnaround.
The Isle of Wight Council says it has developed an action plan, including reviewing operating hours, loading and unloading procedures and staff training.
Out of more than 5,100 passengers with a saver card, 1,188 responded. Most told the Isle of Wight Council that ticket prices are about right.
For a single foot passenger journey, 27% of passengers said the £1 fee (50p for saver cards) is too much, but 71% felt it is correct.
Although most cyclists felt it the fare is about right, 10% said they would pay more.
34% of car drivers said the £2.40 single (£1.80 with saver card) is too much, while most (62%) felt it is about right. While just under half of all users wanted to see an improvement, 24% said the service was above average or good.
Of those who responded, 94% thought Floating Bridge staff were average, above average or good.
Suggestions for improvements also included making the last Floating Bridge of the day meet the last Red Funnel sailing of the day. Some respondents said they would have no issues paying if they knew they could rely on the chain ferry running to a timetable.
County Hall’s proposed improvements will have been considered by the end of February.
Poor is a massive understatement, it has cost Island tax payers a huge amount of money, the Isle of Wight council should be ashamed of themselves for the way the whole situation has/was handled and the cost involved.
Why on earth would you say you would pay more?
A survey was sent to chain ferry saver card holders (those who are most likely to use it regularly )
So how many sent and how many responded ? 25 % seems a very low percentage of people who think it’s a below average service .
You would not buy a season ticket for this poor service, would you ?
And councillors Jordan & Ward who claim a reliable service …(97% ??? County Press ) where did they dig these two cronies up from. …
Funny that. I am a saver card holder and I certainly did not get a survey form to complete. I find the results of this so called survey very suspicious indeed as I don’t believe that the users of this woeful service would rate it as highly as they are claiming. But then we all know what a bunch of liars our council are.
Even better, if the council stops fleecing tax payers every year to bale it out. Use that secret pot of compensation instead.
Sounds like creative accounting. only !,888 people (on saver cards ) responded. How many more people overall used the bridge?
891 if you include the crew.
Foot passenger paying £1 for transporting, lets say, 80kg of themselves and same person in car paying £2.40 for transporting 3080kg in a SUV shows drivers are at a MASSIVE subsidy – not sure how any of them can complain given it also takes longer to load cars than foot passengers and cars take 90% of space. They get subsidised in cost, time and space.
Wow the iow Council has a plan to review operating times loading and unloading procedures, ooh and staff training !!!!!!
Surely this should all be ongoing and treated as a regular operating procedure, staff training updating etc …..
Wonder how long it took them to arrive at this conclusion??????
And as for customer satisfaction!!!! which Christmas cracker did they pull for that joke ?????
I have never heard anyone say they are happy with it….
Breakdowns costs etc ….
Yet another made up survey with bs figures! ALL of its users would rate it a crap service …cos it is lol
Presumably this suspicious survey is just a made up excuse for the council to raise the fares, saying that it is “because the users said they would be happy to pay more”. Wait for the news on fare rises…
When it’s mobile not moored up.
What on earth is “average” for this service? IW Council is good at asking meaningless or leading survey questions – they need to find a better contractor.
As for “average” service: it’s just plain “bad” – slow, noisy,ridiculously low frequency, impediment to other river traffic. No fault of the crews, just a crap machine.
Just seen the BBC News ..They had the Floating Bridge on and were saying that it rarely
breaks down and the head of Transport Mr Phil Jordan says us Islander should be Proud of our Floating Bridge ..really .Propaganda only equalled by Mr Putin and we take no notice of that either !!
It appears to us on the mainland listening to the travel news on the radio that the floating bridge spends more time out of set due to breakdowns than it does actually working.
The old floating bridge is still in Portsmouth Harbour if you want it back again. At least it would be more reliable.
25% said poor, what did they other percentage say, “TOTAL S**T”