The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has released its annual report on passenger satisfaction and performance of Passenger Assist. This is the service that train operators are required to provide to passengers who need additional help to complete their journey because the railway is, for one reason or more, inaccessible to them. The results will come as a huge disappointment to both the industry and passengers alike.<\/p>\n

The number of people who failed to receive any of the assistance they booked increased from 8 per cent to 12 per cent (2022\/23 vs 2023\/4). Those who only received some of that booked assistance \u2013 a booking can consist of several different elements \u2013 remained static, at 10 per cent, when compared to the previous year.\u00a0Overall, 76 per cent received all elements of their assistance booking \u2013 down from 81 per cent in 2022\/23.<\/p>\n

Many disabled passengers rely on this service to help get them to work, go shopping, take part in leisure activities, attend medical appointments or simply meet up with friends and family. It\u2019s a vital part of the journey. 61 per cent of those surveyed said that without it, they couldn\u2019t have completed their journey.<\/p>\n

Looking at the results in more detail suggests that some groups are less likely to receive all the assistance they book. Only 71 per cent of those with a non-visible disability received all parts of the assistance they requested on booking.<\/p>\n

This reflects some of the issues we came across during the ticket office consultations last year. We often had to remind operators that assistance was more than just putting a ramp down, and the mitigation of \u201chaving a member of staff onboard\u201d wasn\u2019t enough on its own. Our work on the consultation demonstrated that disabled passengers book help from staff for a range of things, from buying a ticket, guidance around the station, to help with stairs and luggage.<\/p>\n

Across the rail network, the size and scale of operator services differ considerably, and that may account for some of the variation. As an example, one of the better performing operators has a small number of stations that are fully staffed. You would naturally expect that they perform better, and they do. Contrast that with the larger operators who have hundreds of stations, with a significant number of those unstaffed. In this year\u2019s survey, 23 per cent of passengers who thought the station they got on\/off at was unstaffed, failed to receive any of the assistance booked.<\/p>\n

In other areas, operators choose to focus on providing a \u2018turn up and go\u2019 service, which removes the need to book two hours ahead \u2013 the preference for many disabled passengers, who rightly want the flexibility to travel when they choose, without the hassle of booking. The ORR report doesn\u2019t cover these journeys, but it would be interesting to see how they fare in comparison. Intuitively, you might think with less time to plan operators might struggle. But speaking with one operator recently, they suggested the results would likely be surprising.\u00a0The opportunity to fail to help someone onto a train is much reduced when they are right in front of you. Though there are examples of just that on social media.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most worrying thing about the decline is that operators tell us there is no one thing that\u2019s causing the failures. It\u2019s a patchwork of errors. That makes it much harder to identify a fix.<\/p>\n

The industry has worked hard to try and improve passenger assistance, particularly through the development of the app \u2013 both the passenger and staff versions. Whilst the app still falls short of many people\u2019s expectations in integrating ticket purchase and assistance bookings, and is not for everyone, it is evolving. When first released, staff were unable to add turn up and go bookings retrospectively. If a member of staff helped someone on to a train, then rang ahead to arrange help at the other end, they \u00a0could not put the details into the app, which would make the booking easier to track. Now, they can. We are also aware that operators and the wider industry are working together to better record the reasons for failure. This will be hugely important if it\u2019s to drive further improvement.<\/p>\n

Whilst awareness of passenger assist, amongst those eligible to use is relatively low, the thing we hear most consistently from passengers is that one negative experience significantly undermines their confidence to travel. When you already face significant barriers before you reach the platform, such as getting to the station in the first place, you don\u2019t need another.<\/p>\n

Only 71 per cent of users felt confident that having made their booking, they would receive all the assistance they asked for. Anxiety about what lies ahead is a significant issue for passengers who have made a booking.<\/p>\n

All that said, where passenger assistance was delivered successfully: 94 per cent of respondents said they were satisfied with the service they received; 96 per cent of those who received at least some of the assistance booked were satisfied with the helpfulness and attitude of staff; and 93 per cent were satisfied with how well their needs were understood. They are good grounds on which to try and build back performance.<\/p>\n

The post Report reveals decline in train assistance for disabled passengers<\/a> appeared first on Transport Focus<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has released its annual report on passenger satisfaction and performance of Passenger Assist. This is the service that train operators are required to provide to passengers who need additional help to complete their journey because the railway is, for one reason or more, inaccessible to them. The results will come as a huge…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}