Passenger assist

Complete the Passenger Assist Form, and someone from our Passenger Assist Team will process your request and be in touch should confirmation of any details be required.

Webforms need to be submitted at least 2 hours prior to you commencing your journey within our contact centre opening times (24 hours a day, every day, except Christmas Day and Boxing Day).

Call our Passenger Assist Team on 0800 107 2149

Customers who are deaf or hard of hearing can use the Text Relay service by adding the prefix 18001 in front of the number. A relay assistant will translate your call to text with the Next Generation Text service. To find out more about this service, visit ngts.org.uk

Our lines are open 06:00 to 23:00 daily, where our customer service staff will be happy to help you make your booking. Check out our Making Rail Accessible guides below for more details.

Assistance can also be booked by the Passenger Assist Transreport App

Simply message ‘Assisted Travel’ to 07812 223336 and our social media team can help with your booking

WhatsApp is monitored between 6am – 11pm Monday to Sunday every day (Except Christmas Day and Boxing day)

Please note it may take longer to respond to your request during service disruption.

Our staff work hard to provide you with the help and assistance you need to be able to complete your journey with ease, however we recognise that sometimes, things do not go as planned.

Often, problems can be best resolved by discussing them with staff at the time, so that they can address any concerns you have there and then. If you still feel you need to provide feedback after travelling, please contact us.

Where you tell us about an issue you have experienced with your assistance, we will investigate, and provide you with an explanation.

Where you have experienced an issue which involves multiple operators, you should contact the operator who’s train you were travelling on, or about to travel on when the issue occurred. If this is us, we will respond to your complaint on behalf of all of the train and station operators involved, providing you with an explanation of the root cause. If during our investigation we identify that the bulk of your complaint relates to another operator you have travelled with, we will inform you and with your express permission transfer the complaint to them so that they may address your concerns directly.

We will reply to your request for redress as quickly as possible, in plain English and jargon free, but it may take a little time to investigate and collect the information we need. Please be aware that it may take up to 20 working days for you to receive a response.

We recognise the importance of learning from your experience, understanding what works well, and what doesn’t. We use feedback from our customers to shape our services and inform our decisions, and where required, we will make changes to our processes and procedures to ensure that we address issues to prevent a repeat of issues.

It is important to us that you have a smooth and seamless journey, however we recognise that sometimes this doesn’t always happen. If you feel like you have had an unsatisfactory experience with your passenger assistance you should report it to us and we will investigate this for you and consider compensation on a case by case basis.

We recognise the importance of giving you confidence to travel, which is why if you have booked Passenger Assist in advance for travel on our services and arrive at your final destination, delayed for 15 minutes or more due to issues with your assistance, (for example, staff not being available to assist you) we are happy to offer you Passenger Assist compensation.

There are two forms of compensation - Passenger Assist compensation and Delay Repay compensation - and these can run alongside one another (for example if your passenger assistance was delayed and the next leg of your journey was also delayed).

You can claim Passenger Assist compensation by contacting our Passenger Assist Team. You will need to provide a copy of your train ticket (or proof of purchase) along with your Passenger Assist booking reference number, which can be found on your confirmation email.

Where Passenger Assist has not been provided due to a delay, and both Delay Repay and Passenger Assist compensation could apply, you will be entitled to compensation for both issues, up to a combined value of your purchased ticket for that journey.

If you have experienced other issues with assistance which have not caused delay, please tell us, again providing your Passenger Assist reference number where available, and we will consider compensation on a case by case basis.

More information about Delay Repay compensation, and how this applies for customers using concession cards, season tickets, and travel passes, can be found in section A8 of our Accessible Travel Policy here.

We appreciate that you may have received all of the assistance you need to complete your journey, but you may still wish to contact us about other elements of your journey, such as facilities on the train or at stations to meet your needs, policies and procedures, or the conduct of staff.

You can provide this feedback by contacting our Customer Relations Team.

Where you tell us about an issue you have identified, we will investigate, and provide you with an explanation. If when investigating your feedback, we identify that the bulk of your complaint relates to another operator’s station, trains, or staff, we will inform you of this, and with your consent, transfer your complaint to the most appropriate operator to respond to you directly.

We will reply to your complaint as quickly as possible, in plain English and jargon free, but it may take a little time to investigate and collect the information we need. Please be aware that it may take up to 20 working days for you to receive a response.

We recognise the importance of learning from your experience, understanding what works well, and what doesn’t. We use feedback from our customers to shape our services and inform our decisions, and where required, we will make changes to our processes and procedures to ensure that we address issues to prevent a repeat of issues.

If you book passenger assistance with us, we will ask you if our research partner can contact you after your journey to ask for your feedback. This is entirely optional; however, your feedback helps us to improve our services. Your responses will be anonymous and combined with the responses of other customers before we receive the data, so we won’t be able to identify you from your answers.

We will consider compensation for complaints about the accessibility of our stations, trains and services individually.

Please give us the opportunity to try to resolve your request for redress or complaint. If you are unhappy with the response you receive, you have the right to appeal to the Rail Ombudsman.

The Rail Ombudsman is there to help resolve complaints between us and our customers. It’s free to use their services and they are independent of the rail industry. They don’t take sides, but just look at the evidence available. They will help us both to try to reach an agreement, but if this doesn’t happen, they will make a decision based on the evidence they’ve received. If you agree with their decision, then we have to act on what they say.

You can appeal to the Rail Ombudsman if; you’re unhappy with our final response to your complaint which will be contained in a letter or email (sometimes called a ‘deadlock letter’); or we haven’t resolved your complaint within 40 working days of receiving it; and; no more than 12 months have passed since we sent you our final response.

There are some complaints that the Rail Ombudsman won’t be able to look into, for example if it’s about the way one of our services has been designed, industry policy, or if your complaint relates to an event which took place before the Rail Ombudsman service was established. If that’s the case, then they’ll contact you to let you know. If possible, they will transfer your complaint to another organisation that may be able to help you further, such as Transport Focus, the independent consumer watchdog for the rail industry. They will independently review your complaint and where appropriate, follow things up on your behalf.

Online Portal: Click here
Telephone: 0330 094 0362
Textphone: 0330 094 0363
SMS / Text: 07427 580 060
Sign Language Interpreter: Click here
E-mail: info@railombudsman.org
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