HS2

Automatic compensation to be rolled out on Northern, TPE and East Anglia shortly

Several franchises have made commitments to the DfT to pay automatic compensation to customers in some way this year, the department has told an influential group of MPs.

Addressing the Transport Select Committee inquiry about rail compensation, Simon Smith, director of passenger service design at the DfT, said that the competitive bid process of franchising had now led to positive work being delivered to encourage operators to do everything they can to compensate customers.

“For several franchises, we’ve had commitments to pay automatic compensation to customers in some way, in some circumstances,” Smith stated. “That will be rolled out this year on Northern, East Anglia and TransPennine Express (TPE) to passengers with a season ticket who’ve registered their details, as well as advance ticket holders.”

He also explained that Northern and TPE have committed to a scheme that will see them pay cash into the customer improvement fund should the amount they receive in compensation come to less than the amount they assumed it would be in their bids for the franchises, in an attempt to ensure operators are paying back to customers whether they are active in claiming compensation or not.

Rail minister Paul Maynard also highlighted the need for transparency from operators in the delivery of their compensation schemes to customers.

He commented that while a Transport Focus survey found that 35% of customers rightfully claimed from operators for delayed and cancelled services, which was an increase from 12% in its previous survey, this was “progress, but by no means satisfactory progress”.

“Since Transport Focus’ research came out, there’s been much more focus in the minds of passengers on compensation, not least because of what’s been occurring on GTR,” Maynard said.

“I hope we will see it going up next time Transport Focus does its research. ORR is working closely with rail operating companies, and we’ve asked every TOC to do a report on what they are doing to improve access to compensation for passengers.”

He added: “The industry should ensure that all passengers have the opportunity to claim compensation in an as straight forward and easy to understand way as possible.

“That’s why we added into the franchise agreement this contract of all reasonable endeavours, which asks ‘are the TOCS doing everything they could and should to let passengers know their rights under delay repay?’”

The issue of ensuring visibility of compensation schemes was also raised by Anthony Smith, CEO of Transport Focus, who argued that operators needed to use less “restrictive” language when communicating how to claim compensation.

“The wording is still way too restrictive,” Smith, who wrote for the Dec/Jan issue of RTM about this issue, said. “Customers are told ‘you can use the railway if we let you, but we’ll catch you out if you have done anything wrong’. The language is just wrong.

“It doesn’t reflect what happens in practice where a lot of goodwill gestures go on, so why not just reflect that rather than have this very legalistic, tangled language which puts people off?”

Jacqueline Starr, managing director of customer experience at Rail Delivery Group, added: “We accept that there is more we can do to be clearer to customers around the language and the communications we provide.”

This follows news last month from consumer champion Which? who called for an end to ‘unlawful’ TOC compensation schemes being used by operators.

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