Passenger Assist is the national system for booking help on the railway: someone to meet you, help with luggage or navigation, and — crucially for wheelchair users — bring the boarding ramp to the right door at the right time.
How to book
- By app: the free Passenger Assistance app (by Transreport) lets you book help for any journey in Great Britain.
- By phone or text relay: call 0800 022 3720 (freephone), or contact your train operator directly.
- How far ahead: assistance can be booked up to two hours before your journey — the old 24-hour rule is gone. Earlier is still smoother, especially for complex journeys with changes.
- No booking? Turn Up and Go: at staffed stations you can simply ask staff for assistance. You do not need a booking to be entitled to help — booking just makes it more reliable.
What you’re entitled to on the day
- Assistance from your arrival point at the station to your seat or wheelchair space, including the ramp.
- Assistance at changes and at your destination — the operators are supposed to pass the handover along the whole chain.
- If the station is inaccessible to you or unstaffed, an accessible taxi to the nearest accessible station at the operator’s expense.
- Help under the operator’s Accessible Travel Policy (ATP) — every operator must publish one, and it’s worth skimming the ATP of the operator you use most: it’s the document you’ll quote back at them.
When it fails
Everyone who uses Passenger Assist regularly has a story: the booked ramp that never appeared, the “handover” nobody passed on, the quiet panic of approaching your stop with no staff in sight. When it happens to you:
- On the day: if you can, alert the on-board staff or use the passenger help points. If you’re taken past your stop, staff must arrange your journey back at no cost.
- Within days: complain in writing to the train operator. Include your booking reference, the journey details, and what failed. Ask explicitly for redress under their Accessible Travel Policy — operators are required by the regulator (the Office of Rail and Road) to provide it when booked assistance fails.
- If the answer is inadequate: once you have the operator’s final response (or 40 working days have passed), escalate to the Rail Ombudsman — free, independent, and its decisions bind the operator.
- Repeated failures may also amount to discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 — see our plain-English guide, and get free advice from the EASS on 0808 800 0082.
Booked assistance is a promise. When a promise to a disabled passenger is broken, the railway owes more than an apology — and its own rules say so.
Planning a trip through stations with big platform gaps? Read Mind the Gap: when “level access” trains aren’t.