Transport User Voice – August 2019 – Make Delay Pay campaign

30 July 2019

Rail passengers miss out on up to £100 million compensation each year

Make Delay Pay is Transport Focus’s campaign to encourage passengers to claim the compensation they are entitled to. Compensation provides an incentive to train operators: reliability must keep improving.

Launching the campaign, chief executive, Anthony Smith said: “Too many rail passengers miss out on compensation for late running trains. But to make their voice heard passengers must claim every time. It can also boost confidence and build passengers’ trust in the railway.”

“When things go wrong train operators must ensure every eligible passenger knows about Delay Repay and how to claim. They must also do more to make it easy to claim and automate this process wherever possible.”

As part of the campaign, Transport Focus published its Make Delay Pay report which showed that:

• 35 per cent of passengers claimed £81 million compensation in 2017-18 meaning as much as £100 million remains unclaimed from train operators every year
• just 39 per cent of passengers claimed compensation for journeys delayed for 30 minutes or more. This falls to only 18 per cent claiming for delays of 15 minutes or more
• 82 per cent of delayed passengers entitled to Delay Repay compensation didn’t hear any announcement on the train or at the station about making a claim.

Transport Focus is calling on train operators to:

• make the compensation process quicker and easier for passengers, with choices about how they make a claim and receive the payment (including the option to donate to charity). This also requires more automated compensation schemes, so passengers don’t have to claim in the first place
• do more to promote how and when passengers can claim money back for every delayed journey, including making announcements on trains.

Most train companies now offer Delay Repay. Transport Focus is meeting with every train company to discuss good practice and review website and claim forms. It is therefore challenging them to make the process of claiming much easier and simpler for passengers. Meetings have already been held with Northern, Greater Anglia and Great Western Railway and Transport Focus will be reporting back on improvements for passengers later this year.

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