Asked by: Suzanne Webb (Conservative - Stourbridge)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the systems in place to refund rail season tickets.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
The Department and Transport Focus are in regular contact with the rail industry to monitor the effectiveness of the systems in place to refund rail season tickets. This has led to the introduction of new processes to make claiming refunds easier during this crisis.
Passengers are now able to claim refunds remotely and we have allowed passengers to backdate their season ticket refund claim to 17th March, when ‘do not travel’ advice was first introduced. The refund acceptance period for passengers has also been extended to 56 days, and a season ticket refund calculator has been added to National Rail’s website.
Train operators have allocated additional resources to process the unprecedented number of refund requests as quickly as possible. Since 17th March over 85,000 season ticket holders have claimed season ticket refunds totalling over £130 million in response to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Asked by: Suzanne Webb (Conservative - Stourbridge)
Question to the Department for Transport:
What steps his Department is taking to improve rail services in the West Midlands.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris
Major investment is planned to improve rail services throughout the region. In the West Midlands, £700m is being invested in a fleet of 180 new carriages which will deliver 20,000 more peak hour seats into Birmingham over the next two years,
The East Midlands will benefit from our £1.5bn upgrade of the Midland Mainline, with faster peak time journeys to London from this December and a brand-new fleet of bi-mode trains entering service from 2022.