Assisted Travel (Accessibility)

Upgraded help point units, more frequent inspections, and improvements to connectivity at unstaffed and remote stations are among the changes being delivered following the Office of Rail and Road’s 2024 report, which identified weaknesses in reliability and inconsistent monitoring of service quality across the network.

Passengers who rely on assistance when travelling with Northern Trains should see improvements to the service over time, after the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) secured commitments from the operator to ensure staff receive disability awareness training and to provide a £550,000 additional package of measures.

The Office of Rail and Road has today published its first annual benchmarking report on train and station operators’ delivery of passenger assistance. The findings highlight that while passengers are generally satisfied with the standard of assistance when it is delivered, delivery itself can be unreliable with 11% of passengers reporting that they received none of the assistance they booked in

The Office of Rail and Road has today published its study into how train operators at busy rail stations communicate and record requests by passengers for assistance. The study found that a dedicated staff app has proven beneficial, but there is much more scope to use data and the technology to make further improvements for passengers.

The Office of Rail and Road says redress claims for failed rail passenger booked assistance should always be assessed on a case-by-case basis, rather than based on ticket price, in a letter sent to the rail industry which seeks views on the proposal.

The Office of Rail and Road is asking for views on a new annual assessment, to be launched in 2025, that will rate the performance of how train companies provide assistance to disabled passengers.

Following ORR calling out its poor performance on reliability of its assistance to disabled passengers, train operator Northern has now provided the rail regulator with an acceptable action plan that sets out how they will improve passenger assistance.

Operators need to make improvements to their management of passenger help points at stations, says the rail regulator, after a report highlights poor reliability and monitoring of service quality, particularly for stations in England.