Railways: Compensation

(asked on 18th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made on the introduction of an automated delay repay compensation scheme that is interoperable across train operating companies.


Answered by
Andrew Jones Portrait
Andrew Jones
This question was answered on 26th April 2019

The Department requires operators of new franchises to provide automated Delay Repay compensation processes that make claiming swift and simple and is working with the rail industry and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to deliver more automated claims processes across all DfT-let franchises. The Delay Repay compensation scheme has now been rolled out to all but one of these franchises. Since announcing ‘one-click’ compensation in October 2018, the Government has also introduced a requirement for new franchises to introduce simple one-click automated claims systems, available via smartphones and smartcard registration, to make it easier for passengers to claim compensation when they have suffered delays.

In practice, train operating companies work with one another to ensure that the Delay Repay compensation scheme works in an interoperable way between franchises. For example, if a passenger submits their claim for compensation to an operator other than the one responsible for the delay, then the operator receiving the claim should forward this to the one that was responsible for the delay and advise the passenger that they have done this.

We can advise that South Western Railway (SWR)’s compensation offering was improved earlier this month with the announcement of Automated Delay Repay, which is a new simpler way of claiming compensation for Season ticket holders using SWR Touch smartcards and for holders of Advance tickets purchased through SWR’s website:

https://www.southwesternrailway.com/contact-and-help/refunds-and-compensation/automated-delay-repay.

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