Consumer

The Office of Rail and Road believes good progress has been made over the past year in the quality of information provided about planned rail replacement bus services, but concerns remain with the passenger experience during the actual journey.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) is asking passengers to complete a short questionnaire to share their experiences of being penalised for travelling by train, either for travelling without a ticket at all or without a valid ticket.

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.

The rail regulator wants to see an improvement plan from the train operator, who again rated poorly in ORR’s latest survey about the experience of passengers who pre-booked additional assistance with their journey.