Customer satisfaction with San Francisco’s BART is rising as overall ridership increased by more than 9% over last year and a greater percentage of those riders than ever say they are seeing BART PD on their trips.

The trends are included in BART’s latest Quarterly Performance Report covering October to December 2023.

BART’s Customer Satisfaction

BART’s overall customer satisfaction rating in the most recent Passenger Experience Survey (PES) reached 81%, which is up 7% from the previous quarter. This is the third consecutive quarter PES results have shown that BART’s overall customer satisfaction rating has increased. PES is a year-round survey conducted on BART trains on a near-daily basis.

It is the first time since the 2012 Customer Satisfaction Survey BART has seen a Customer Satisfaction rate in the 80s. Overall satisfaction hovered between 84% and 86% from 2004 through 2012, before hitting a low of 56% in 2018.

In BART’s latest survey in 2022, satisfaction was 67%. BART conducts the Customer Satisfaction survey every other year and the next survey will be fielded in Fall of 2024.

The improvement in ratings comes as BART has advanced the implementation of its Safe and Clean Plan, which focuses on boosting the visible safety presence in the system and increasing staffing to clean trains and stations.

Customers Recognizing Police Presence

For the second consecutive quarter, the percentage of riders who say they have seen BART PD on their trip has reached a record high. This time 20.3% of those questioned reported they saw BART’s safety presence on trains or in stations, which is up from the previous record of 17% just last quarter.

The last two quarters have been the first in BART’s history where the percentage of riders who reported seeing BART PD exceeded the agency’s official goal of 12%.

Sexual Harassment on System Dropping

BART’s efforts to be at the forefront of combating sexual harassment and gender-based violence continue to show results.

The percentage of riders saying they have experienced sexual harassment on BART has been declining since early 2023. In the latest quarter the percentage fell to 7%, which is down from a high of 10%.

The improvement follows the launch of Phase II of the Not One More Girl campaign.

Not One More Girl is a BIPOC youth-led initiative in partnership with community-based organizations and BART to end gender-based violence. Not One More Girl has become a model in the transit industry.

It provided inspiration for SB 1161, which was signed into law in 2022, as well as SB 434, which is currently moving through the Legislature, to address harassment on transit and collect survey data to inform safety efforts.