The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has told the rail industry to provide more reliable assistance to disabled passengers.

The regulator carried out research involving more than eight thousand passengers, and has included the findings in its 2023 rail consumer report, published today.

The research shows that when passengers receive assistance, they are very satisfied with it, both in booking and in  receiving assistance. However, there were still too many incidents of passengers not receiving help, even when they had booked it.

The number of bookings for passenger assistance has increased by 74% this year and the number of Disabled Persons’ Railcards in circulation has risen by eleven per cent. This shows that disabled people are returning to rail travel post-pandemic in significant numbers.

ORR’s research shows some improvement from the industry, as overall passenger satisfaction with assistance has risen from 86% to 90%. Train operators and Network Rail have made some progress in delivering disability training as the ORR required them to do, which is likely to have contributed to the better passenger ratings.

Findings included:

• 94% of disabled passengers were satisfied with the booking process.
• Telephone is the most common method for booking assistance, used by two-thirds of passengers, and they showed the highest levels of satisfaction.
• Satisfaction with assistance received at the station rose to 95%.The percentage of passengers reporting that they received all the assistance they had booked rose from 76% last year to 81%.
• However, only 66% of those with a physical impairment who booked assistance getting to the wheelchair area reported receiving all the assistance they had booked.
• 8% of disabled passengers received none of the assistance they had booked, down from 11% reported last year.

Today’s report also:

• notes the ORR’s new Code of Practice for complaints
• confirms thar it had delivered the Plan for Rail’s commitment to take on sponsorship of the Rail Ombudsman later this year
• welcomes the wide adoption of a service from the Smarter Information Smarter Journeys programme, enabling retailers to notify passengers by email or text of changes to booked trains made up to 48 hours before travel; only Transport for Wales and C2C missed the March 2023 deadline for this.

Stephanie Tobyn, director of strategy, policy and reform said: “The industry has made progress in supporting the needs of disabled passengers and many people have a positive experience of booking and receiving passenger assistance. However, our research shows that there are still too many instances where assistance fails and when this happens the impact on disabled passengers can be significant, creating unnecessary anxiety and frustration.

“Operators must continually focus their effort on providing reliable and consistent assistance and we will be working with the rail industry and passenger groups on how to achieve this.”