Consumer

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 (ORR) has made it mandatory for all rail operators to assess redress claims from passengers whose booked assistance failed, on a case-by-case basis. The change is detailed in an update to the regulator’s Accessible Travel Policy (ATP) Guidance.

• Industry must retain a relentless focus on safety throughout rail reform. • Financial constraints on Network Rail require careful management in the coming years. • Network Rail is taking action where train performance needs to improve. Passenger train punctuality is largely stable, but cancellations have reached record highs, with train operator cancellations the dominant factor.

The Office of Rail and Road’s latest survey shows once again there remain too many instances of passengers not receiving the help they had booked. As part of the regulator’s priorities for the coming year, it will benchmark and rate each operator on its delivery of passenger assistance to better target interventions.