ScotRail’s £1m payout over months of delays
Massive compensation bill for passengers hit by service disruption
PASSENGERS on Scotland’s beleaguered rail network have been paid more than £1million in compensation over the past 18 months.
ScotRail made payments of more than £53,000 a month for delays and disruption during the 2017-18 financial year.
Figures released by the Scottish Government reveal that a further £505,121 was paid out during the first six months of the 2018-19 year.
The huge expense has been fuelled by tens of thousands of ‘delay repay’ claims lodged with the rail operator, which has been blighted by major disruption, cancellations and delays.
The figures came to light in a reply to a question lodged at the Scottish parliament by Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Rumbles.
A response from Transport Secretary Michael Matheson says many of the delays were caused by this summer’s heatwave and by Storm Ali, which hit the country in September.
But Mr Rumbles said: ‘No matter what the weather does, ScotRail seems to treat it as a new excuse for running behind schedule.
‘The amount being paid out to passengers for delays seems to be rising sharply. While passengers will be glad to get some compensation, I am sure that they would much rather have a rail service that arrived on time in the first place.
‘The Scottish Government needs to consider whether the present contract is the best option for Scotland’s rail users.’
Major delays were caused when trains ground to a halt this summer as ScotRail was forced to scrap or delay dozens of services after rail temperatures soared as high as 124F (51C).
This cost ScotRail a total of £107,278 in delay repay compensation payouts.
During Storm Ali, ScotRail ended up cancelling hundreds of trains due to severe weather, costing £139,932 in compensation payments. The figures emerged just a month after the company apologised to customers for its poor performance.
It was hit with more than 65,000 compensation claims for late-running trains between January and September this year.
In May, it was announced that ScotRail had been punished with record fines of £4.6million after failing to hit two-thirds of its performance targets.
The company fell short in 22 areas out of 34, including security, customer service and cleanliness of trains, stations and toilets.
Transport Scotland said the ongoing issues with rail travel stemmed from Network Rail, which falls under the remit of Westminster rather than Holyrood.
A spokesman added: ‘ScotRail accept that their performance has not been good enough recently, and in meetings with the company ministers have made clear the need for improvement.
‘Many delays are due to infrastructure issues which are the responsibility Network Rail, which remains the responsibility of the UK Government.
‘Devolution of Network Rail’s activities to Scotland would allow us to take further action to improve services.’