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Bay Area Rapid Transit's (BART) customer satisfaction showed improvement in on-time performance and seat cleanliness in the agency's latest survey.

The ratings improvement is the result of BART's investments in the system, including the installation of new, easier-to-clean vinyl seats, BART officials said in a prepared statement. The survey was taken in September and involved more than 6,000 randomly selected rider participants.

Overall rider satisfaction with the BART system rose two points to 84 percent in 2012, meaning 84 percent of respondents said they were "very satisfied or somewhat satisfied" with service, agency officials said. The survey was last taken in 2010, when the overall satisfaction rating was 82 percent. The survey is conducted every two years.

In the latest survey, 5 percent of the participants indicated they were "somewhat or very dissatisfied" with BART.

Survey respondents also were asked to rank 48 attributes on a 1-to-7 scale, with 1 being "poor" and 7 being "excellent." The rankings showed the greatest satisfaction improvements in 2012 were noise levels on trains, on-time performance, leadership in solving regional transportation problems, condition/cleanliness of seats and comfort of seats, BART officials said.

The improved rankings related to noise may be related to additional rail grinding of track, while the seat improvement likely reflects an upgrade from cloth to vinyl seats, they added.

Areas in which satisfaction declined included escalator and elevator reliability, elevator and station cleanliness, and availability of seats on trains.