Passenger research: awareness, clarity, and fairness of terms and conditions

This research is commissioned by ORR's consumer team in support of our strategic objective to promote better customer service for rail passengers. One of our key roles in this area is to secure compliance with consumer law, particularly amongst train companies, to help ensure that all rail users get the service to which they are entitled. Amongst the consumer laws train companies are required to comply with are those that require them to provide consumers with the information they need to make informed choices, for example when buying and using train tickets, and to have terms and conditions that are fair and transparent (written in plain and intelligible language). In this context, we recently commissioned an audit of train company websites , one of the findings of which was that train companies could do more to improve the prominence of key terms and conditions on their websites, and we are currently carrying out a desk-based review of terms and conditions against the relevant legal standards to assess the extent to which these are fair and transparent. The requirement: We are now commissioning this further piece of primary research to support the above work by providing us with insight into passengers' actual awareness, understanding, and perceptions in relation to relevant terms and conditions.