Office of Rail and Road has published their statistics on passenger rail service complaints about the second quarter of 2020-21 (July, August, September).
The report reveals that nationally there were 41,183 complaints closed by train operators in 2020-21 Q2, this shows a decrease of 69.3% from 2019-20 Q2 where there were 134,313 complaints closed.
Complaints regarding personal security whilst travelling onboard the train accounted for 6.9% of all complaints closed (up 5.5pp from 2019-20 Q2). This is the highest since 2013-14 and is likely to relate to Covid-19, such as the use of face masks on board the train.
The stats also convey that fewer people were complaining about adequate room for all passengers on trains, down 5.6% percentage points likened to 2019-20 Q2.
The highest complaints category was ticketing and refunds policy, making up 13.6% of all complaints closed. Complaints about punctuality and reliability was the second most cause of complaint, with 11.6% of all complains made (down 13.2pp from 2019-20 Q2).
This is the second quarter in a row that punctuality and reliability have not been the most complained about category.
ORR’s statistics for 2020-21 show that nationally 79.3% of recoded station stops were arrived at early or less than one minute after the scheduled arrival time. This is an increase of 14.3pp from the same quarter in 2019-20.
