A new website had been launched to help passengers raise their problems with public transport.

From badly cleaned buses to a lack of seats at stations, FixMyTransport.com offers people the chance to air their issues with travel operators and fight for a better service.

The website gives travellers a chance to post their complaints online, view maps showing problems in their area and form campaign groups with other unhappy passengers.

The new lobbying tool has been launched by mySociety, the not-for-profit-organisation behind similar channels such as parliamentary monitoring site TheyWorkForYou.com and FixMyStreet.com which had over 60,000 problems reported on it last year.

MySociety director Tom Steinberg said the new site, decided by a vote among it’s contributors, was a natural progression for the organisation.

He said: “It’s a great fit with what we do because it is about real action driven by the internet rather than just talking about stuff.

“So many people care about public transport and we have already had a lot of people leaving complaints on the site. For me there aren’t enough ticket machines at Victoria Station so I was easily encouraged to vote for it.”

Despite only going live on August 31 the website has already been inundated with issues. One user has already reported an issue with the V2 Villager bus between Burton upon Trent and Derby.

These include bus companies ignoring stops, overcrowding and calls to increase certain services. The complaints are passed on to the relevant company who are then offered the chance to respond.

But while passengers have taken to the site immediately, Mr Steinberg admits that the response has been more mixed among travel firms.

He said: “Generally operators are only just beginning to discover we exist. Some will embrace it and some won’t like the fact that the complaints are public. We have already had one or two grumbles but some of them have been really great. Special credit goes to London Midland, the train operator, who has already left a comment on the system, written their own biography and been super positive.

“We want them to see it as a positive thing where they can also let people know what they are doing. If they have three new trains for example which they haven’t launched yet they have a chance to let the public know instead of it being hidden away in some corporate document on their website.”

The website claims to have very operator and route covered from Lands End to the Shetland Isles using data from the National Public Transport Data Repository and National Public Transport Access Nodes.

It has also used dozens of volunteers to ‘crowdsource’ the contact details of operators, to make sure problem reports go to the right place.

The launch of the new service has been welcomed by the Department of Transport.

A spokeswoman said: “It’s good to see local communities coming together and using social media to make public transport better for all passengers. Councils, who are responsible for transport locally, will be able to keep abreast of issues more easily which will hopefully help in addressing the real needs of their community.

“People often say the British love to complain – well here is a way to put your gripes into positive action.”

And while FixMyTransport is currently only available in the UK, mySociety hopes that eventually it will be copied around the world following similar success with FixMyStreet which is now available everywhere from Brazil to South Korea.

For more information visit Fix My Transport