More refunds due to rail passengers
RAIL passengers are in line for more refunds on laterunning journeys.
Chris Grayling, Secretary of State for Transport, has announced an improved refund scheme for trains missing their scheduled arrival time.
Disgruntled travellers will soon be able to claim compensation for trains that run more than 15 minutes late.
Up until now, repayment was only available for those more than 30 minutes late.
Rochdale has seen its fair share of late-running services in recent months.
During the last 12 weeks, on the 12 journeys leaving Rochdale for Manchester Victoria between 6am and 10am on weekday mornings, trains ran late by more than 15 minutes on 19 occasions.
Among those, trains were late by more than 30 minutes seven times meaning that trains were 15 to 30 minutes late on 12 occasions, more than doubling the number of trains for which passengers will be able to apply for refunds.
As a proportion of all weekday morning ser- vices in the last 12 weeks, rail passengers travelling to Manchester Victoria would have been able to apply for a refund on one out of every 40 services departing from Rochdale.
A spokesman for Northern Railway, which runs services between Rochdale and Manchester, said: “We understand the frustration our customers face when they are delayed through no fault of their own. We operate busy services on a complex network and there will be times when our customers’ journeys are disrupted.
“Since April 1 2016 we have offered ‘Delay Repay’ compensation to customers who are delayed by 30 minutes or longer on their journey.
“An honest and transparent method to compensate rail users is vital to continue to offer the best in customer experience.”
Coun Ashley Dearnley, Rochdale’s Conservative Group leader, welcomed the move.
“A lot of people in my ward commute to work and this is an issue that is raised time and time again,” he said.
“We also have issues with problems such as overcrowding, but making sure journeys are on time is really important.
“People need to get to their places of work and meetings and need to be able to rely on public transport.
“It is very important that we are able to hold the service operators to account.”