Romania's interim transport minister summons CFR chief after 86% of surveyed passengers say they would not recommend their train journey

A week of direct passenger feedback

Romania's interim transport minister, Radu Miruță, launched an online form one week ago allowing CFR passengers to report problems directly to the ministry. By Sunday 12 July, 1,091 travellers had submitted responses, and Miruță described the volume as rising. He characterised the data as coming "from the grassroots, from people who pay for tickets."

What passengers reported

The dominant complaint was non-functioning air conditioning, cited by 65% of respondents. Cleanliness in toilets and carriages was the second most frequent issue at 29%. The most striking figure was the overall satisfaction indicator: 86% of passengers said they would not recommend their journey to another person. Seven in ten respondents had travelled on InterRegio (IR) trains, where air conditioning is a mandatory standard.

65% is the percentage of those who say the air conditioning does not work; 29% say the second biggest problem is cleanliness in toilets and carriages; 86% of passengers would not recommend to someone else the journey they took.

The minister's response

Miruță announced on Facebook that he had invited the director of CFR Călători to the Ministry of Transport on Monday morning at 10:00. He said the data "do not look good" and that the meeting was called to demand explanations. A new column has been added to the complaint spreadsheet requiring CFR to provide a written explanation within two days for each case.

We are working simply to shine a lantern on the cause: in the table with each case reported by passengers this week, we have created another column where CFR must fill in the explanation within two days. Every complaint must have an answer. And where there are guilty parties, there must also be consequences.

Focus on InterRegio services

The minister highlighted that roughly 70% of complaints came from IR train passengers. On these services, functioning climate control is a compulsory specification, making the 65% air-conditioning failure rate a contractual and regulatory concern. Miruță did not specify which routes or rolling stock types generated the most complaints, but the concentration on IR trains points to a systemic maintenance gap on the backbone of CFR's long-distance network.

What happens next

The complaint form remains open, and the ministry will continue collecting passenger reports. Miruță stated that the era of problems being "hidden in reports" is over and that every flagged issue must now be addressed. No deadline was given for a public response from CFR Călători, but the two-day explanation window for individual cases suggests the ministry intends to track compliance on a case-by-case basis.

The time when problems were hidden in reports is over. From now on, every problem reported must be tackled.