Press releases

Speedier access to Rail Ombudsman being consulted on by rail regulator

4 August 2021
Options to reduce the time passengers must wait before seeking a resolution with the Rail Ombudsman is among a set of proposals being consulted on by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to improve handling of passenger complaints.
Manchester Piccadilly station

Between April 2019 and March 2020 more than half a million passenger rail service complaints were responded to by train operators in Great Britain. In 2020-21, this dropped to 133,003 complaints due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A new code of practice is proposed to simplify and strengthen ORR’s current requirements on complaints handling, and ensure they keep pace with passengers’ expectations.

ORR is now consulting on this as well as on allowing passengers quicker access to the Rail Ombudsman should they not be happy with the outcome of a complaint.

Currently, passengers must wait 40 working days or deadlock before they are able to escalate a complaint to the Ombudsman. The regulator is seeking views on options to reduce this, including options to potentially halve the timescale to 20 working days.

The move is intended to help incentivise early resolution from train and station operators, and would allow passengers who are not happy with the outcome of their complaint to raise it to the Ombudsman sooner.

As part of its wider consultation package, ORR is also seeking views on updating the ways in which complaints can be submitted to train operators – including via social media channels – as well as seeking input on the development of a new suite of performance metrics to enable better benchmarking of quality and timeliness in complaints handling.

Stephanie Tobyn, deputy director for consumers at ORR said:

“Good complaints handling is an essential part of the service that train and station operators provide to their passengers.

“When things go wrong, it is important that there are effective means for passengers to submit complaints, and for operators to put things right.

“We want to ensure our requirements keep pace with passengers’ expectations – and seeking views on quicker access to alternative dispute resolution is part of that.”

ORR’s consultation closes on 30 September.

Notes to Editors:

  1. Under their current licences, train and station operators must establish and comply with a complaints handling procedure (CHP) that is approved by ORR. In 2015 we published our guidance on complaints handling procedures for licence holders, setting out what we will look for when carrying out our approvals role and when monitoring for continuing compliance.
  2. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is a process that enables disputes between a consumer and business to be settled by an independent mechanism. The Rail Ombudsman provides the ADR scheme for the rail industry.
  3. Consultation document
  4. Responses to this consultation are invited by 5pm on Thursday 30 September 2021, and can be sent by email to chp@orr.gov.uk or by post to ORR consultation: Complaints Code of Practice, Office of Rail and Road, 25 Cabot Square, London, E14 4QZ.
  5. We plan to publish all responses to this consultation on our website.

Following consideration of the responses we will publish our decision and, if appropriate, proceed with the statutory licence modification process.

Cover image: Manchester Piccadilly station