If you do experience cancellations or delays on your journey, what can be done about it? Here's our guide to claiming compensation you might be owed.
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00:00Whether it be down to industrial action, passenger numbers slowly returning to pre-pandemic levels or weather-related disruption,
00:07the number of rail compensation claims paid out has gone up.
00:10So if your journey is affected, what can you do?
00:12Getting your refund can depend on the operator you travelled with,
00:15but usually passengers are entitled to a refund of 25% of the cost of a single ticket
00:21if arrival at their destination is delayed by between 15 and 29 minutes.
00:25If they arrive between 30 and 59 minutes late, this goes up to 50%.
00:30A full single-ticket refund is entitled for delays of an hour,
00:33and a full return-ticket refund for more than two hours.
00:36This can be claimed up to 28 days after the date of travel.
00:40Rail companies complain they're made to take the blame for delays outside of their control,
00:44like weather and infrastructure issues which are Network Rail's responsibility.
00:48A spokesperson for the Rail Delivery Group representing train operators said they apologise to everyone affected,
00:54adding, when train delays or cancellations do occur, it's important that customers know how to claim for compensation.
01:00We've taken steps to simplify this process,
01:02and the Office of Road and Rail Data confirms that 99.5% of all delay compensation claims were closed within 20 working days.
01:10And now, on the 17th July, the King's Speech saw Parliament officially opened,
01:14with the new government's laws laid out.
01:16Included was an overhaul of the UK rail network,
01:19bills to bring train operators into public ownership,
01:22and to create new public-body Great British Railways to oversee the rail network will all be introduced.
01:27On the whole, it's a fairly ambitious plan that's not massively new.
01:32It's something that Labour's proposed before under Jeremy Corbyn,
01:37but it's had a lot of popularity over the years, so it's something they're sticking with this time around.
01:42So it's all about making things completely passenger-focused, completely about the people.
01:50There's no market competition for these companies, really.
01:54You can't go to another train company to get the same line, generally.