We understand how disruption can have a worse effect on disabled and older passengers.
We do everything we can to help you continue your journey comfortably, safely and with minimum inconvenience.
We provide clear information to direct you to any alternative transport. If a disruption makes services inaccessible to you, we provide alternative accessible transport. This is provided for the part of the journey where replacement transport is provided or for the whole journey if it would otherwise involve several changes between taxi and train.
We want to make sure that passengers can make as much of their journeys as possible by rail. However, we will arrange alternative accessible transport, such as a taxi, for you and a companion if:
- you cannot travel to or from a station which is inaccessible to you;
- rail-replacement transport is inaccessible to you; or
- a short-notice disruption to services makes services inaccessible to you.
We provide this transport for the same price as your rail ticket. We discuss what kind of taxi you need before we book it. The alternative transport takes you to or from the most convenient accessible station or staffed station where someone can help you.
We cannot guarantee alternative accessible transport for a mobility scooter because they often cannot be carried safely in a taxi. However, if you are already travelling with us in a mobility scooter when the disruption happens, we will make you as comfortable as possible while you wait for the next train.
When trains are switched to a different platform at short notice we will do our very best to get you to your train before it leaves.
Wherever possible, if you have booked assisted travel in advance and we know that there will be a disruption, we will try to contact you about the disruption and, if necessary, make alternative arrangements for travel.
We also try to rebook your assisted travel if your journey cannot be made due to a disruption.
Please see section 4 for information on how we communicate the lack of access to features such as lifts and toilets. Please report any problems like this (particularly at unstaffed stations) to our Customer Relations team.
Contact Customer Relations.
- Phone: 03333 211 202
- Next Generation Text service: 18001 03333 211 202
- Contact us webform: click here
- (Opening times: 24/7 every day (except Christmas Day and Boxing Day).
You can find information on our procedures for helping disabled passengers in an emergency in our guide ‘Making rail accessible: Guide to policies and practices’. You can also get a copy of this from the Customer Relations team. This document or our policy document can be provided on request in either standard or alternative format (for example large print) free of charge.
Our Head of Customer Experience has day-to-day responsibility for our Disabled People’s Protection Policy. You can contact them through our Customer Relations team.
