The Office of Rail and Road: Annual Passenger Assist research
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR), the independent safety and economic regulator for Britain’s railways, has an established requirement that all Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and Network Rail maintain an Accessible Travel Policy (ATP). A key element of ATP delivery is the Passenger Assist service — a free service for disabled passengers or those who need help when travelling by rail. Passenger Assist allows passengers to book a range of support, from navigating stations to boarding and alighting trains, luggage handling, ramps, and taxi transfers when needed.
ORR commissioned M·E·L Research to conduct another wave of its annual Passenger Assist research. The study aimed to monitor performance across operators, understand service delivery against regulatory commitments, and track changes over time. The research examined the full user journey — from the booking process through to the experience at the station — and importantly allowed ORR to attribute findings to specific Station Facility Operators (SFOs).
This wave of research included new elements, such as questions on redress where assistance was not received and on complaints where satisfaction was low. As with previous years, the project involved engaging with passengers who had used the service, including those with complex, non-visible or multiple disabilities. Some groups represented hard-to-reach audiences; for example, passengers with neurodiverse conditions or communication disorders were less likely to travel alone and were more likely to have companions answer on their behalf, shaping the survey design.
Passenger Assist users are a diverse population, with needs spanning physical, sensory, non-visible and long-term health conditions. Many rely heavily on the service: 61% of those who received assistance stated they could not have completed their journey without it. This context underpinned the importance of collecting robust insight to support ORR’s monitoring and regulatory responsibilities.
Approach
M·E·L Research delivered a large-scale mixed-mode quantitative programme, aligned with ORR’s methodology and incorporating refinements from earlier waves. All elements of the research adhered to ISO 9001, 20252 and 27001 standards.
Survey Design and Materials
The questionnaire was developed in collaboration with ORR, using the established framework but introducing additional questions on redress, complaints and awareness of the Passenger Assistance app.
The survey captured demographic information, booking behaviour, satisfaction measures, outcomes of assistance received, and importance ratings relating to key service elements.
To enable attribution to specific SFOs, respondents were asked about one randomly selected leg of their journey, and about assistance at a specific station on that leg.
Sampling and Fieldwork
The Rail Delivery Group supplied monthly sample files, each containing a record for every assistance type booked, rather than per passenger. These files were de-duplicated, and a randomised selection process was used to allocate each participant a specific journey leg, station, and assistance category.
To ensure smaller SFOs were robustly represented, the station to be discussed was selected with weighting towards operators likely to be under-sampled in a purely random approach.
All users with an email address were invited to complete the online survey. A telephone follow-up stage was run in every rail period to engage participants unable to complete online and to strengthen representation of under-sampled SFOs.
Quotas were set on telephone interviewing to ensure balanced coverage across SFOs.
Respondents could take part a maximum of twice in the survey year to avoid over-representation of frequent users. Fieldwork covered travel undertaken between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024. In total, 9,436 respondents completed the survey — a significant increase from the previous year.
Methods Used
Online survey (majority of responses)
Telephone survey using trained interviewers
Randomised journey-leg and station allocation to ensure unbiased attribution
Weighting by SFO and rail period to reflect the distribution of assistance requests across the network
Responses covered all mainline SFOs, from large operators such as Network Rail and Great Western Railway to smaller operators, ensuring comparability across the network.
The survey captured users with a wide range of disabilities, including physical impairments (62% of respondents), non-visible disabilities (16%), sensory impairments, mental health conditions, and communication disorders. The sample included both customers and companions, with 22% of responses given by someone supporting a passenger requiring assistance.
Outputs & Analysis
Analysis
Analysis followed ORR requirements and MEL Research standards, using:
Descriptive statistics to report satisfaction, booking behaviours and delivery performance.
Sub-group comparisons across disability type, age, booking method, SFO, station size and journey characteristics.
Thematic analysis of open-ended comments, identifying patterns in positive experiences and areas for improvement.
Trend analysis comparing findings with all previous waves.
Data were weighted to reflect the volume of assistance bookings by SFO and rail period. For transparency, confidence intervals for each SFO were produced, enabling ORR to understand the reliability of comparisons between operators.
Deliverables
M·E·L Research provided ORR with:
A detailed written report containing full findings, charts and subgroup analysis.
Appendices covering methodology, questionnaire, station categories, sample composition, key metrics by disability type and by SFO, and statistical confidence intervals.
A summary of key findings, ensuring accessibility for non-technical audiences.
Insights on new measures including redress and complaints behaviour.
Usage of Findings
ORR uses this research to:
Monitor SFO compliance against ATP obligations.
Identify operators requiring targeted intervention and improvement plans.
Understand the experiences of those most reliant on Passenger Assist, including passengers with non-visible disabilities, wheelchair users, and those travelling through smaller or unstaffed stations.
Support continuous improvements in booking, communication and staff training across the rail industry.
The findings have directly informed ORR’s ongoing work with SFOs to address gaps in service delivery, improve confidence in the booking process, and raise awareness of redress and complaint routes among passengers.
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