Rail Passenger Rights & Obligations

Information and tickets

Provision of travel information during the journey

We know how important it is to keep you informed at all stages of your journey. We provide information:

on GWR.com and the GWR app
on posters on board our trains and at our stations
on our social media channels
through announcements on board our trains and at our stations
through on board and station staff

How requests for information are handled at the station

You can obtain information and help at all our stations:

posters and signs – they provide information about stations facilities, timetables, and how to contact us
Help Points – available 24/7 and allow you to find out the latest information about your journey or speak to a member of staff
GWR.com and the GWR app – provides live updates of train times and train running information
Customer Support – available to provide information between 06:00 and 23:00 on 03457 000 125
Social media – available between 06:00 and 23:00 on weekdays and between 07:00 and 23:00 on weekends. Twitter @GWRhelp, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp on 07890 608043.
Customer Ambassadors – dedicated to providing customers with any help they need*
leaflets – they provide information that may be useful before, during, or after a journey*
announcements – pre-recorded and live announcements are made to provide service updates and other journey information*
information screens – next train indicators, summary of departure screens, and special notice screens are placed in different parts of the station to provide service information*

*Only available at key stations

How information about train schedules, tariffs and platforms is provided

We know how important it is to give you everything you need to plan your journey properly, and to keep you informed of any changes. We offer advice, timetables, and information about travelling with GWR in different ways:

GWR.com and the GWR app – we provide several journey planning tools on our website and mobile app. You can use these to find train times, ticket prices, and live updates. We also provide information on how planned rail improvements might affect your journey
Help Points – available 24/7 and provides details of the next train and platform information. They also allow you to speak to a member of staff if further help is required
Customer Support – available to provide information between 06:00 and 23:00 on 03457 000 125
Social media – available between 06:00 and 23:00 on weekdays and between 07:00 and 23:00 on weekends. Twitter @GWRhelp, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp on 07890 608043
posters at stations – they provide information about timetables and how to contact us if help is needed
information screens – they display train times and platform information*
printed timetables*

*Only available at key stations

Ticket buying facilities

We want to make it as easy as we can to buy a ticket for travelling with us, so we offer several options to suit different circumstances and budgets.

Tickets can be bought:

online at GWR.com or through the GWR app
by visiting our ticket offices
through ticket machines at most stations
through our Specialist Sales team on 03457 000 125*
through our Passenger Assist team on 0800 197 1329 (when booking journey assistance for elderly and disabled customers)

*Isles of Scilly, Night Riviera Sleeper, Group Travel and Business Direct bookings only

Tickets can also be bought from the conductor on board the train if you are starting your journey from a station with no ticket buying facilities.

Availability of staff at the station for information provision and ticket sale

Information about when our stations are staffed and the ticket office opening times can be found on GWR.com and on the National Rail Enquiries website.

All our unstaffed stations have Help Points to allow you to find the latest information about your journey and speak to a member of staff. We also make sure that posters are kept up-to-date with information you might need.

How information to disabled people and persons with reduced mobility is provided

We know how important it is to have the information you need for your journey. We provide information in a variety of ways to suit the needs of all our customers, including those with a disability.

Our booking offices and customer information points are the easiest places for customers with a disability to get the information they need. Many of these are equipped with induction loops and some booking offices have low-level counters. The staff here can give you details about the facilities, services, and level of accessibility at all railway stations in the UK and answer any questions about your journey – including about train times and connections.

We display our printed information clearly at our stations, and make sure the display is accessible for people in a wheelchair. If you can’t find what you need, please let one of our team know and they will do their best to help.

You can get the latest information about train times, including delays and planned improvement work:

on GWR.com and the GWR app
on our Facebook page
on our Twitter account, @GWRHelp
by sending us a WhatsApp message on 07890 608043
by calling our Passenger Assist team on 0800 197 1329 or by dialling text relay on 18001 0800 197 1329
by calling National Rail Enquiries on 03457 48 49 50* or textphone 0345 60 50 600*
by calling National Rail Enquiries’ Welsh language service on 0345 60 40 500*
by using the TrainTracker™ text service: Text ‘dep’ followed by the station you need to 84950 to get real-time information (texts cost 25p plus your normal network rate)
by calling the TrainTracker™ speech recognition system on 03457 48 49 50*, which will tell you the latest train times

*Standard network charges apply. Calls from mobiles may be higher

For more information about our commitments and standards of service for disabled and mobility-impaired customers, download our Accessible Travel Policy. (PDF, 227 KB)

Punctuality of services and general principles to cope with disruption to services

Delayed services in 2023/24

Service	Right-time	Delayed
Service	Right-time	Total	1-59 minutes	60-119 minutes	Partial cancellation and delays of over 120 minutes	Missed connections with other train services
GWR	58.80%	41.20%	35.50%	0.10%	1.90%	data not available
High speed services	26.00%	74.00%	64.60%	0.70%	4.70%	data not available
London - Thames Valley services	67.70%	32.30%	28.30%	0.00%	0.70%	data not available
West services	61.60%	38.40%	32.30%	0.10%	2.10%	data not available

Disruption

We work hard to make sure journeys with us run smoothly but we know that sometimes things don’t go to plan. When this happens, we have plans in place to help you reach your destination as soon and as comfortably as possible.

We are active partners in the Rail Delivery Group’s Smarter Information Smarter Journeys programme which looks to improve the delivery of information to customers at an industry level.

Our Customer Action Teams (CATs) have been trained to assist customers and colleagues and will be deployed to stations or trains during significant disruption. We also have an On-Call process, where managers are allocated to a geographical area of the business to provide a suitable response to any incident. These managers are trained to deal with any incident and to provide support to our customers and colleagues, whether that be through the delivery of alternative transport, information provision, or simply to provide a management presence.

When we have significant disruption, we will implement responses appropriate to the incident, including:

on-call managers deployed to stations and trains
CATs deployed to stations and trains
frequency of information is increased, with updates on the incident sent at least every 20 minutes
information is provided in the format of Problem, Impact and Advice
alternative road transport will be provided
arrangements will be put in place for other train companies and transport providers to accept our tickets
we will liaise with our Social Media team, National Rail Enquiries, INRIX (who provide traffic updates to various media agencies), and our Customer Support team
special messages will be displayed on information screens at our stations advising customers of the problem, the impact on journeys and our advice

Our commitment to customers if things go wrong can be viewed in our Passenger’s Charter. (PDF, 111 KB)

Cancellation of services

Service	Full cancellations
GWR	3.70%
High Speed services	4.10%
London- Thames Valley services	3.40%
West services	3.90%

Cleanliness of rolling stock and station facilities

Cleaning intervals

We work hard to keep our trains and stations as clean and as safe as possible.

We have a robust cleaning programme which is designed to maintain the overall environment for our customers, so that they have a pleasant experience when visiting GWR stations. We clean our stations daily or weekly depending on their usage. We also do regular extensive deep cleans while ensuring there is little to no impact on our customers.

Our trains are cleaned before, during, and after most journeys, as well as at night. All our trains undergo different types of cleaning:

planned heavy cleaning – an extensive and planned programme of cleaning, undertaken over a longer period and includes additional areas being cleaned. Typically delivered on each train every 28 days
exterior cleaning – a regular clean of the outside of the train. Intercity Express Trains (IETs), Night Riviera Sleeper trains, and Castle class trains are typically cleaned every other day. Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) and Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) fleets are cleaned every four days
overnight cleaning – a nightly cleaning programme designed to improve the main areas subject to a build-up of dirt and debris during the day
intermediate cleaning – a cleaning programme designed to be carried out at locations where it is not possible to deliver an overnight clean in its entirety. For example, when trains are kept overnight at a station or siding instead of the depot
turnaround cleaning – delivered at terminating stations to prepare the train for the next journey, time-limited and responds to service alterations.
in-transit cleaning – a cleaning programme designed to maintain the overall environment and comfort of customers during their journey

Technical measurement for air quality

As well as the regular opening of passenger doors, all our trains have either air conditioning fitted or ventilation through extractor fans and hopper windows that can be opened. The air conditioning mixes fresh air intake with the air in the saloon, which completely changes the air in the carriages multiple times per hour, in accordance with the British Standards or Rail Group Standards.

Availability of toilets

There are toilets, including at least one that is accessible, on all our trains. You'll usually find one at the end of a carriage.

All our key stations have toilets. We keep them open when the station is staffed.

View our station facilities and staffed hours.

Customer satisfaction survey

Customer Satisfaction survey	2023/24 % Satisfaction
Punctuality of trains	69
Information to passengers in case of delays	56
Accuracy and availability of information on train times/platforms	85
Consistently good maintenance/excellent condition of trains	83
High level of security on train	91
High level of security in station	85
Cleanliness of inside of the train	83
Provision of useful information throughout the journey	83
Response times to information requests at stations	Not measured in CSM
Availability of good quality toilets on every train	74
Cleanliness and maintenance of stations to a high standard	75
Accessibility of stations	86 (Wavelength)
Accessibility of trains	84 (Wavelength)
Assistance provision to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility	89 (Passenger Assist Post Journey Research)

Complaint handling refunds and compensation for non-compliance with service quality standards

Procedure in place

We know that the needs of communities and our customers change, and we want to carry on living up to your expectations, and our own high standards. So, when you get in touch with us with a complaint or some feedback, we record all the details – good and bad. We share your comments with the relevant areas of the business in daily, weekly, and monthly reports. They go to the managers and senior managers responsible, as well as our directors.

The reports help us work out where we can improve, and what changes we need to make to give our customers a great service. That’s why we’re always happy to hear from you.

We will:

use the complaint data to identify the root causes of complaints.
take action to reduce the chance of a similar issue happening again.
regularly review our performance when dealing with complaints to improve how we deal with them.

Find out more about how we deal with complaints and complaints data (PDF, 315 KB).

Number of complaints and outcome

In 2023/24 we received 60,849 complaints and closed 48,093 complaint cases.

We closed 97.23% of the complaints we received within 20 days of receipt, 60.93% within 10 days, and 53.1% within our target of 5 working days. We took an average of 8 days to respond.

Categories for complaints

The top 5 complaint categories in 2023/24 were:

Quality on Train – Sufficient room for all passengers to sit/stand
Train Service Performance – Punctuality/Reliability (i.e. the train arriving/departing on time)
Company Policy – Ticketing and refunds policy
Delay compensation – Claim rejected
Quality on Train – Facilities on board

Possible improvement action undertaken

Quality on Train – Sufficient room for all passengers to sit/stand

Complaints about sufficient room for passengers to sit/stand were the predominant driver of complaint contact throughout the year. We can identify two key sub-categories that impact on our customers’ journeys, firstly, instances where trains ran with fewer carriages than planned, and secondly, a knock-on effect of cancellations where the following train carries more customers than expected (which has also been impacted by the ongoing Industrial Action).

We are working in partnership with Hitachi to ensure our IET fleet is available to meet the demands of our timetable, and to reduce instances where we have to run services with fewer carriages than expected.

Train Service Performance – Punctuality/Reliability (i.e. the train arriving/departing on time)

We saw ongoing Industrial Action throughout the year impact our ability to operate our published timetable. Flooding at various locations on the GWR network in early December and early January also led to multiple line closures and caused disruption to journeys.

We have also seen performance in the Thames Valley drive complaints, however, through collaborative working with Network Rail specifically via Project Brunel, we have identified problem areas and taken actions to improve. This has delivered an improvement in performance towards the latter part of the year, and our challenge now is to carry on that progress into the next year.

Company Policy – Ticketing and refunds policy

The main complaint drivers in the ticketing and refund policy category last year included the refund process, ticket restrictions, Advance tickets, and irregular travel (Penalty Fares).

We continue to work with industry colleagues on the simplification of fares. We have worked hard to make improvements to the refund process as a whole, and specifically our Refund portal. That has focused on making the process and requirements much clearer to reduce errors, and to make sure we have all the information we need to process a refund request promptly. That work has led to a significant reduction in the volume of complaints seen towards the end of the year, and we look forward to making further improvements next year.

Delay compensation – Claim rejected

Throughout the year we saw the volume of Delay Repay claims increase, and consequently the volume of complaints for rejected claims also increased. To address this, we have made changes to our Delay Repay claim portal, to improve the claim process and to reduce error. Customers now have the ability to save their regular journeys and Season Ticket details, and we’ve tightened up the process whereby we forward claims on to other Train Companies for delays they’ve caused.

As with refunds, this work has seen the volume of complaints fall significantly throughout the year.

Quality on Train – Facilities on board

This category includes complaints about on-board issues such as Wi-Fi, the toilets on-board, and primarily complaints about a lack of on-board catering.

We always work to ensure we have enough staff available to provide our advertised catering service, and have an ongoing recruitment programme to maintain that commitment. The improvements we have seen to punctuality and reliability have also made a positive impact on catering complaints – when trains are running as scheduled we are less likely to see our on-board crew displaced across our network.

Period	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
Booked assistance volume	10,555	10,979	10,891	12,252	11,164	12,603	11,159	9,487	8,286	10,362	5,802	7,559	9,910
Unbooked assistance volume	6,203	6,135	6,411	7,166	7,125	7,128	6,022	5,865	5,567	5,964	4,270	5,238	6,292