The Office of Road and Rail has today published the terms of reference for an inquiry into the rail disruption caused by the May timetable change on Northern and Govia Thameslink Railway services.

Today’s announcement follows on from the Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling’s, decision to hold the independent inquiry into the disruption caused for passengers.

The Office for Road and Rail, or ORR for short, will look into the roles played by the train operators, the Department for Transport and Network Rail to establish what went wrong, and to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The Department for Transport has promised the ORR its full cooperation.

The inquiry will be given access to all information available at each organisation involved. Evidence will also be collected from passengers involved from the consumer interest group, Transport Focus.

Professor Stephen Glaister will lead the inquiry as he is the Chair of the ORR.

You can view the full terms of reference by clicking here

What did the officials say?

Rail Minister Jo Johnson said:

GTR and Northern are rightly focused on improving services for passengers, who will receive compensation for the unacceptable disruption experienced in recent weeks, and that is our overriding priority.

This independent inquiry will at the same time ensure we also learn all the lessons from what has happened.

The interim report will be published in September and the full report in December. Separately, the department will be investigating whether GTR and Northern have breached their contracts and will take appropriate action if they have.

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