A national shift from manual, phone-based assistance to a scalable digital system improving efficiency, reducing costs and increasing passenger confidence.
reduction in cost per booking
of users would not have travelled without it
increase in assistance delivered
In 2021, 80% of assistance requests across Britain were made by phone, with frontline teams and call centres managing bookings manually. Passengers were typically required to give at least 24 hours’ notice, limiting flexibility and creating a high-friction experience.
This model placed significant pressure on operational resources. During peak periods, there were struggles to keep pace with demand, making it difficult to respond to changes or support more spontaneous journeys. For operators, the approach was both costly and complex to manage at scale.
At the same time, there was no consistent way to capture or analyse assistance activity across the network. Data was not recorded in a standardised way, limiting the ability to identify risks, understand performance or target improvements.
As a result, processes varied across operators, leading to inconsistent service delivery and limited operational insight at a national level. For passengers, this created uncertainty and reduced confidence in travelling independently.
Rail Delivery Group (RDG) partnered with Transreport to implement the Passenger Assistance Management System across the National Rail network.
The platform introduced a single, standardised approach to requesting and delivering assistance, connecting passengers, frontline staff and operators through shared, real-time information.
The technology introduced structured workflows, including digital handovers, end-to-end tracking and clear allocation of responsibility. This ensures requests are managed consistently across different operators and locations.
Passengers can request, modify and track assistance digitally, reducing reliance on call centres and enabling more flexible travel. For staff, the system provides live visibility of passenger needs, journey updates and service changes, supporting more consistent coordination across stations and onboard teams.
Both planned and unplanned assistance is captured within the same system, providing a more accurate view of demand across the network.
By replacing fragmented processes with a connected system, Passenger Assistance enables a more efficient and scalable approach to delivering accessible travel.
Passenger Assistance has delivered a measurable shift in how accessible travel is managed across the national rail network.
The move away from phone-based booking has reduced operational pressure on call centres and frontline teams, while lowering the cost per booking and simplifying how assistance is delivered at scale.
Access to consistent, national data has transformed how operators manage assistance. Teams can now identify where assists fail, understand the causes and implement targeted improvements, reducing operational risk and supporting better decision making.
Improved visibility of demand also enables more effective resource planning, helping operators deploy staff more efficiently across the network.
For passengers, the impact is substantial. Many report they would not have travelled without Passenger Assistance, demonstrating the direct link between accessibility, confidence and ridership.
This case demonstrates that making accessibility a strategic, data-led capability can reduce cost, improve operational performance and enable more people to travel independently.
“That requirement was a huge barrier. It was clear that we needed to align ourselves with customer expectations. Passenger Assistance has fundamentally changed that. It has enabled a much shorter booking horizon and given us far greater visibility of the true volume of assistance being delivered across the network.”
Jason Webb, Customer Experience Director, Rail Delivery Group
