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Home About us Vision, mission and values Your needs come first

Your needs come first

Meeting the needs of our direct customers, the railway companies, and the passengers who use our stations, as well as taking on board the wishes of all our stakeholders, is at the heart of what we strive to do as a company. Offering quality and creating shared value

Several tools, diversified according to the business processes and stakeholders involved, can be used to guide the company's commitment towards quality and supply objectives that meet the real needs of passengers in stations, Railway Undertakings offering their transport services on our network, communities affected by railway projects and other stakeholders. These range from round tables, consultation procedures, a web channel for public reports and claims, to a structured “on the ground” survey of our stakeholders’ opinions and requirements.

We have had our own Market Observatory (OdM) since 2004, a laboratory dedicated to researching, analysing and permanently monitoring the quality level perceived by the recipients of our services; the travel patterns of current and potential train users; and the requirements, opinions, needs and mobility preferences of citizens. Created to measure passenger customer satisfaction with railway station services according to the quality factors provided for by the regulations for Service Charters in the transport sector, over time the OdM has become a tool for understanding the environment in which the Company operates and involving its stakeholders so as to better guide the Company's activities and choices according to the legitimate expectations of the latter and to increase the integration of sustainability in business management and the creation of shared value. 

The RFI OdM is implemented in cooperation with leading research institutes selected through a European tender (the most recent of which was awarded in 2022 to the RTI Scenari/Doxa). The RFI OdM conducts permanent surveys, divided into 6 specific observatories dedicated to passengers, Railway Undertakings (on the quality of services offered to passenger RUs and freight RUs), Multimodal Transport Operators and ad hoc surveys, conducted in response to the gradually emerging needs for understanding and dialogue. All the results collected by the various Observatories are made available to management through an online portal to make the dissemination of information more widespread and effective. 

The common objective of all OdM activities is to assist defining our development and improvement plans and actions based on the feedback and expectations of our stakeholders.

RFI Services Charter Our commitments to the quality of stations and services of major importance to the public
Quality and punctuality of services to Railway Companies

The permanent surveys of passengers using our stations and the services they offer include:

►   the PASSENGER observatory,with which we conduct customer satisfaction analysis. Created in 2004 with the aim of supplying Service Charter indicators, it has evolved over time to become one of the largest market surveys in Italy. To date, the research involves carrying out approximately 183 thousand face-to-face interviews with an equal number of selected travellers at around 750 stations receiving more than 94% of passengers arriving at/departing from the more than 2,000 active RFI stations. The survey makes it possible to determine monthly satisfaction indicators for the various locations/services at the station on the basis of ten distinct quality macro-factors. For RFI, it is a strategic and operational planning support tool capable of providing, by analysing time series, general and local improvement plans aimed at all areas of activity at the station, from décor to cleanliness and from commercial services to corporate protection. The results are disseminated to all company management and shared with third party companies holding service contracts with RFI.

Respondents’ travel patterns are also analysed during these interviews, with a particular focus on the modes of transport used to get to/from stations, instrumental in defining station development plans to enhance their value as intermodal hubs and territorial development poles, at the service of sustainable mobility and city development.

►   The SALA BLU observatory: a monthly survey conducted by telephone among an annual sample of around 2,000 service users. The interview covers the customer's entire experience, from booking to arrival at the destination station. The survey determines satisfaction indicators for about 40 service features. The data are determined both for the entire network and for each individual Sala Blu point used.

►  The SECURITY observatory, launched in 2018, will carry out around 50,000 interviews per year in two survey sessions. It uses a mixed interview technique (face-to-face and telephone) and was created with the aim of investigating issues relating to passengers' perception of safety and security in stations and on board trains, as these are strategic variables influencing the criteria for choosing a means of transport. The large sample base makes it possible to carry out analyses of the entire network, but also of each local area, thus making it possible to identify any specific critical issues.  

Listen, monitor and improve. Passengers and RFI stations

The permanent surveys dedicated to Railway Undertakings and other operators using our network and services concern:

the Passenger RU, Freight RU and MTO observatories: these are addressed to the direct customers of RFI and its subsidiary Terminali Italia in order to annually assess their level of satisfaction with the articulated system of services made available to them both in the area of passenger and freight transport and terminal services.

The survey on RUs covers all companies that have a framework agreement or contract of use with RFI. Given the complexity of the topics covered, the interviews, which are mainly addressed to CEOs, Commercial Directors or Production Managers of the companies, are conducted by expert interviewers following a quantitative-qualitative approach in order to allow satisfaction indicators to be defined and the individual subject areas to be examined. The questionnaire on which the interviews are based is divided into areas/processes for each of which different macro- and micro-factors are investigated. On the basis of the results of the surveys, appropriate improvement actions are implemented for those factors that show insufficient levels of satisfaction

 

Ad hoc surveys are carried out whenever there is a specific need to hear from stakeholders, whether in connection with the development of infrastructure projects, the emergence of important matters for improving the quality of the services offered, or the definition of the Company's materiality matrix, i.e. RFI’s areas of action considered to be of greatest importance by internal and external stakeholders and on which to focus the Company's attention improving sustainable development objectives and creating shared value.

Recently, the Covid-19 health pandemic suggested that it would be appropriate to create a special Observatory on passengers' sentiments in the Covid era. This has resulted in three distinct lines of research being developed to monitor the evolution of the behaviour, expectations and judgements of current and potential station users during the re-opening stage following lockdown.  The areas of research concern:

- passengers, with 13,500 telephone interviews, distributed over three survey waves with twin samples of station users in 2019,

- passengers who have used the assistance services offered by the RFI Sala Blu points, with quality focus groups analysing the new needs that the pandemic has fuelled in passengers with disabilities and reduced mobility, and

- the Italian population of train users and non-users, with 5,000 telephone interviews with a representative sample of the adult population, analysing the changes caused by the pandemic in the travel behaviour and lifestyles of Italians, with the aim of assessing the medium-term effects.
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