Passenger Charter

• Download Passenger Charter

• Introduction
• National Rail Conditions of Carriage
• Finding out about our train times, fares and station facilities
• Buying your ticket
• Delays
• Refunds
• Compensation
• Finding a seat
• Disabled passengers
• Catering
• Lost Property
• Answering your enquiries
• Keeping you updated on our customer service performance
• We welcome your comments
• Other useful information

Introduction

Southeastern provides rail services in South East London, Kent and East Sussex. Southeastern is committed to providing a safe, reliable, welcoming service all day, every day and we work hard to deliver this promise. We’re continuing to invest in and improve the service we provide and welcome your feedback, suggestions and ideas to help us achieve this.

In producing this Passenger Charter, we set out to explain:

• the minimum standards we expect to achieve;
• how we’ll compensate you if things go wrong;
• how we’ll tell you about our performance; and
• how you can contact us with your suggestions or concerns.

We review our Passenger Charter every year and any changes are made following consultation with our Stakeholder Advisory Board, Passenger Focus, London TravelWatch, and the Department for Transport. We carry out market research to get a better understanding of what you think of our service and how we could improve it further. Wherever possible, we make changes to our Passenger Charter and services in light of these comments and those received in correspondence from passengers.

If you’d like to comment on any aspect of our Passenger Charter or the services that we provide, please contact our Customer Services team:

Telephone: 0845 000 2222

Address:
Southeastern Customer Services
PO Box 63428
London SE1P 5FD

Copies of our Passenger Charter are available from any staffed Southeastern station or from Customer Services.
 

National Rail Conditions of Carriage

Our Passenger Charter does not affect your legal rights; which are set out in the National Rail Conditions of Carriage. You can view these on southeasternrailway.co.uk or nationalrail.co.uk or can ask for a copy at any staffed Southeastern station or from our Customer Services.

The National Rail Conditions of Carriage cover all journeys made on our services. They also cover all ticket purchases except for purchase of Oyster PAYG value. The purchase of Oyster PAYG value is covered within the Transport for London Conditions of Carriage. You can view these on tfl.gov.uk
 

Finding out about our train times, fares and station facilities

On the internet

Nationalrail.co.uk National Rail Enquiries is the official information site for rail services in Great Britain. Here you can plan your journey, check train times, find out how trains are running, look up fares and find out about the facilities at stations.

At Nationalrail.co.uk you can create your own customised timetable based around your origin and destination, your own time requirements and the days of the week that you want and then download it as a PDF document for printing at your leisure or for storing on your computer or PDA.

southeasternrailway.co.uk
Our website is the place to find out about the services we provide. We keep our site up to date with information and offers that are useful and relevant to our customers.

By telephone

National Rail Enquiries: 08457 48 49 50 (24 hours)
Textphone: 0845 60 50 600 (for passengers with hearing impairments)
Southeastern Customer Services: 0845 000 2222
Textphone: 0800 783 4548 (for passengers with hearing impairments)

At your local station

Pocket timetables are available at all the staffed stations we serve. These booklets contain details of the services, bus links and connections with other train operating companies relevant to that station and are free of charge. Posters showing train times are on display at all stations.

In addition to the timetable posters, each station prominently displays posters with information about forthcoming engineering work and how it affects the timetable.

We’ll provide summaries of this information on the posters at least four weeks in advance and we’ll provide full details on the posters of any alternative train or replacement bus services at least five days in advance for any timetable changes caused by planned engineering works.

When we introduce a new timetable, we aim to have the ‘pocket’ versions available at stations at least four weeks before the new timetable starts. To avoid confusion with the current timetable these new ‘pocket’ versions may not be on display, but are available on request.

If it becomes necessary to put in place an emergency timetable, we will endeavour to give you as much notice as possible through National Rail Enquiries, southeasternrailway.co.uk, local radio, on-station information and via our email alerts.

Journey information for other means of public transport anywhere in Great Britain including Underground, bus, coach, tram or ferry services is available from:

Traveline; traveline.org.uk

0871 200 22 33  (07.00 to 21.00 for the Greater London area and 07.00 to 22.00 elsewhere).

Transport for London: tfL.gov.uk
020 7222 1234  (for journeys involving public transport in London)

Transportdirect: transportdirect.info
 

Buying your ticket
 

On the internet

You can buy a wide range of tickets, from our website southeasternrailway.co.uk. Tickets can be sent to you by first class post or special delivery or you can collect them from self-service ticket machines at stations.

Self-service ticket machines

Self-service ticket machines are available at many of our stations. These offer a quick and easy way of buying or collecting a wide range of tickets. Tickets can be purchased with a credit card, debit card or cash.

At the station

Each staffed station displays a poster showing the opening hours of the ticket office and other useful information. All Southeastern ticket offices offer a wide range of National Rail tickets. We’ll always sell you the ticket that most suits your needs, regardless of whether or not you’re travelling on our trains.

Oyster PAYG

You can pay for your journey on Southeastern within the London Fares Zones 1-6 using Oyster Pay As You Go. You can top up PAYG value at our self-service ticket machines or other PAYG outlets. As long as you have enough PAYG value on your Oyster Card then you simply touch in at the beginning of the journey and touch out at the end of the journey. Doing this ensures you will be charged the correct fare.

Queuing times

Please allow sufficient time to buy your ticket. Our aim is that, under normal circumstances, you shouldn’t have to wait for more than three minutes before being served and no more than five minutes at busy times. Each station’s busy times for buying tickets at the ticket office are displayed on its information poster.

We monitor ticket office queues to ensure we are meeting these targets. If you wish to renew a Season Ticket or make a reservation on another train operator’s services it may be better to avoid the busy morning and evening rush hours. This will help our staff to give you the best possible service.

Penalty fares

We operate a Penalty Fare system on all Southeastern routes.

When travelling on Southeastern, you must carry a valid ticket or validated Oyster Card for your entire journey for the class of travel you are using, or have other authority to travel. If your ticket attracted a Railcard discount you must have your Railcard with you. If a station doesn’t have a ticket office, or the ticket office is closed, you can purchase tickets from the self-service ticket machine at the station. At stations where there’s no ticket office or self-service machine you must obtain a ‘Permit to Travel’ from the machine. Where these are not available, tickets should be purchased at the first opportunity during the journey. Failure to purchase a valid ticket for your entire journey may leave you liable to pay a Penalty Fare. This will be £20 or twice the appropriate full single fare to the next station stop, whichever is the greater.

Full details of our Penalty Fare system are displayed on our website and copies of our Penalty Fares leaflet are available from any staffed Southeastern station or from Customer Services.

Ticket gates

Automatic ticket gates are installed at a number of stations on the Southeastern network. These gates help us to reduce fare evasion and keep our stations safer.

Oyster PAYG Validators

There are Oyster validators, either free standing or fitted to the ticket gates, at every station within the London Fare Zones 1-6. These enable customers using Oyster PAYG, to touch in at the beginning of every journey, and, to touch out at the end of every journey. Failure to touch in and out will lead to you being charged the maximum Oyster fare, regardless of the length of the journey made.
 

Delays

If delays occur we’ll endeavour to get you to your destination as quickly as possible. If you miss your last train because of a delay to one of our services, we’ll arrange onward transport either by road or with another train operating company or if this is not possible we will provide overnight accommodation.

If your journey is delayed we will provide the information you need to complete your journey and to make a claim for compensation if your journey is delayed by 30 minutes or more.

On all trains with catering facilities you will be offered complimentary non-alcoholic hot or cold drinks (subject to availability) if your train is delayed by 30 minutes or more.

We’ll consider any reasonable claim you may have for additional costs incurred because of a delay to one of our services (for example, the cost of alternative travel arrangements). Claims for consequential loss will only be considered under the terms of the National Rail Conditions of Carriage.

Our refund and compensation policy is explained in the following paragraphs.
 

Refunds

If the train you planned to catch is delayed or cancelled and you decide not to travel, you can return your unused ticket (other than a Season Ticket) to the ticket office for an immediate full refund. No administration fee will be charged. If your ticket was bought from a travel agent, you should contact them for a refund.

If the train service is running normally and you decide not to travel you can apply for a refund at any Southeastern ticket office. This must be done within 28 days of the expiry of the ticket’s validity. They will tell you if your ticket is eligible for a refund. You may have to pay an administration charge not exceeding £10. If your ticket was bought from a travel agent, you should contact them for a refund.

If you used Oyster PAYG to pay for a journey which was delayed (and have correctly touched in and touched out) then we will endeavour to arrange for the system to refund you the correct amount when you next touch in at the station you most frequently use. If you do not receive an automatic refund then we will treat each journey as a Single journey as described above.
 

Compensation

For all tickets purchased after 1 July 2011, the Delay Repay compensation system applies. Under our Delay Repay scheme, if your journey is delayed by more than 30 minutes, irrespective of what caused the delay, you will be entitled to claim compensation:
 

Day Tickets

• If your journey is delayed by between 30 and 59 minutes, we’ll compensate you to the value of 50% of the fare for the portion of your journey affected by the delay. For example, 50% of the cost of a single ticket and 25% of a return ticket will be paid.
• If your journey is delayed by between 60 and 119 minutes, we’ll compensate you to the value of 100% of the fare for the portion of your journey affected by the delay. For example 100% of the cost of a single ticket and 50% of a return ticket will be paid.
• If your journey is delayed by 120 minutes or more we will compensate you to the value of 100% of the return journey.

Season tickets purchased from 1 July 2011

Annual tickets – compensation is calculated on the basis of one return journey being made every Monday to Friday and one return journey being made at the weekend one week in four. This gives 520 journeys on Mondays to Fridays and 26 journeys at weekends. Therefore we divide the fare paid by 546 for the refund value per journey.

Quarterly, Monthly and Weekly tickets are calculated using pro-rata divisions of the annual calculation.

Should a period of sustained poor performance be experienced (this is measured by the number of trains arriving at their final destination within 5 minutes of their scheduled time) we will consider compensating season ticket holders over and above the arrangements outlined above. In doing so, we will consult Passenger Focus and London TravelWatch.

Compensation will be paid in National Rail Travel Vouchers which can be used as payment for (or part payment towards) any National Rail ticket, including season tickets.

In the event that an emergency timetable is introduced, compensation entitlements will be based on that emergency timetable.

Claims can be made directly through our website or by downloading a form that can be sent to our ‘freepost’ address. You can also collect a form from staffed stations.

All claims for compensation must be submitted within 28 days of the relevant journey and include details of the delay experienced. We will only consider claims after this period if you have an exceptional reason. We always review our operation when there have been problems with the service. This helps us to learn from our experience and lessen the chances of the same problems occurring again.
 

Monthly and longer season tickets purchased before 1 July 2011

Please note that if you had a monthly or longer season ticket that was purchased before 1 July 2011, Southeastern will honour compensation claims made under the arrangements of the previous Southeastern Passenger Charter which were as follows:

“Train punctuality, reliability and compensation arrangements. The minimum levels of performance which we aim to achieve in each service group are:

• This refers to peak time punctuality and is the percentage of trains arriving at their destination within 5 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. Peak time refers to arrivals at London between 07.00 and 09.59 and departures from London between 16.00 and 18.59 Monday to Friday.

† This refers to Monday to Friday reliability and is the percentage of the scheduled services which operate throughout the entire day.

If you hold a monthly or longer Season Ticket, and Southeastern’s punctuality or reliability for the appropriate service group is on average lower over the previous 12 months than the thresholds published in the above table we’ll give you a 5% discount on renewal of your ticket.
If we are below both of these thresholds, the discount will be 10%. You will automatically receive this discount when you renew your ticket. You must renew your ticket within four weeks of the expiry date of the old one, it must be for the same journey and for the same or a shorter period of time. Monthly or longer season tickets do not attract compensation for individual delays. When these Season Tickets are renewed, they will automatically attract discounts if punctuality and reliability standards were not met.”

These performance figures will be independently audited once prior to 30 June 2012. We’ll publish these performance figures every four weeks on our website.

If you do not have access to the Internet at home, you may be able to use facilities at your local public library, or you can request a paper copy by contacting our Customer Services or asking at a staffed station.

We will also display the figures on a poster at the following stations:
Ashford International, Bromley South, Canterbury West, Chatham, Dartford, Faversham, Folkestone Central, Hastings, Lewisham, London Blackfriars, London Bridge, London Cannon Street, London Charing Cross, London St Pancras, London Victoria, London Waterloo East, Maidstone East, Maidstone West, Margate, Orpington, Ramsgate, Sevenoaks, Sittingbourne, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.

Delays and cancellations that are caused by incidents beyond the control of the rail industry are not included in our performance results.

This includes:

• Security alert
• Extreme weather
• Fatality or suicide
• Vandalism
• If we have published in advance an emergency timetable

The Delay Repay scheme will not apply to you until after you have renewed your season ticket for the first time after 1 July 2011. You can choose to ‘opt out’ of the system of discounts where performance is below the thresholds as described above anytime between 1 July 2011 and 30 June 2012 and then claim compensation under the Delay Repay scheme. But please note once you’ve ‘opted out’ it is not possible to revert to the previous arrangement.

From July 2012, we will publish Public Performance Measure figures instead of these figures.
 

Finding a seat

Southeastern operate a walk-on service which means you can join any of our trains if you have a valid ticket. We know that the ability to turn up and travel is something that passengers value so we cannot always guarantee to provide a seat, especially during peak periods.

Our aim is that nobody should stand for more than 20 minutes, even during our busiest times. We monitor the number of people using each train on a regular basis using either automatic passenger load detection equipment or manual counts and use that information to allocate carriages to best meet demand.
 

Disabled passengers

We’re committed to making travel on Southeastern as accessible as possible. With 24 hours’ notice we’re able to provide assistance to disabled passengers who need it at any of our staffed stations. While 24 hours’ notice is preferable, we will always do our best to accommodate your needs if this is not achievable.

To make the necessary arrangements please contact our assisted travel line by:

Telephone:  0800 783 4524
Textphone:  0800 783 4548 (for passengers with hearing impairments) or by submitting an assisted travel booking form online.

Passengers with hearing difficulties may wish to enquire about train times and fares using the Textphone service provided by National Rail Enquiries.

Textphone:  0845 60 50 600 (24 hrs).

There are designated car parking spaces available for blue badge holders at all the station car parks that we manage. Parking in these spaces for blue badge holders is free.

All of our trains have space for wheelchairs and those trains which operate out to the Kent Coast and Sussex have dedicated space within the passenger saloon for wheelchair users and their companions. These trains also have accessible toilets.

Our ‘Disabled People’s Protection Policy’ sets out our approach to meeting the requirements of the Department for Transport’s Code of Practice, ‘Accessible Train Station Design for Disabled People’ and describes the arrangements for implementing our Policy. Copies are also available from our assisted travel line.
 

Catering

Catering trolleys are provided on some of our Mainline services.
The trains which offer this service are clearly marked in our timetables. We also seek to ensure that there is a good range of catering outlets at the stations we manage.
 

Lost property

If we find any item of lost property we’ll always do our best to contact the owner. If you lose an item of property on one of our services, please contact Customer Services using the webform on our website or by telephone. If we find your lost property it will be stored for three months at London Cannon Street station, from where you can collect it. We charge a collection fee to cover our administration costs. The charges are displayed on the lost property area of our website.

If you do not have access to the Internet at home, you may be able to use facilities at your local public library, or you can request a paper copy by contacting our Customer Services.
 

Answering your enquiries

We aim to answer 97% (80% within 30 seconds) of all calls to our customer service centre. If you contact us using our Feedback form or write or fax us with your comments or complaints we aim to respond to you within ten working days.

Please address your letters (including a daytime telephone number where possible) to:

Southeastern Customer Services
Address:  PO Box 63428, London SE1P 5FD

Telephone:  0845 000 2222
Fax:  0845 678 6976
Textphone:  0800 783 4548  (for passengers with hearing impairments)

During times of unusually high demand we’re sometimes unable to meet these response targets. Please bear with us, as we’ll respond to you as quickly as we can.
 

Keeping you updated on our customer service performance

In addition to the four-weekly updates on train service performance we’ll keep you informed of other aspects of our service from time to time, including:

• queuing times at ticket offices;
• our response times to the letters and web email forms you write;
• our performance in answering your telephone calls to our enquiry service; and
• feedback from the latest National Passenger Survey.

If you do not have access to the Internet at home, you may be able to use facilities at your local public library, or you can request the information by contacting our Customer Services.
 

We welcome your comments

We’re always pleased to hear the views of our passengers, which are vital in understanding where improvements to our service can be made. We maintain a constructive working relationship with both Passenger Focus and London TravelWatch, undertake market research, hold regular ‘Meet The Managers’ events at selected London stations, arrange quarterly Stakeholder Advisory Board meetings and consult with Rail User Groups across our network. We also take very seriously the results of the twice yearly National Passenger Survey.

If you’ve any recommendations that you feel could enhance travel on Southeastern, or would like to comment on any aspect of our service, please contact us using our Feedback Form or by telephoning or writing to:

Southeastern Customer Services
Address:  PO Box 63428, London SE1P 5FD

Telephone:  0845 000 2222
Fax:  0845 678 6976
Textphone:  0800 783 4548 (for the hearing impaired)

Alternatively, you can fill in a comments card, available at any of our staffed stations.

When writing to us, please include your tickets and a daytime telephone number with your correspondence, as we often find that a telephone conversation is much more effective than lengthy correspondence.

Please give us the opportunity to resolve any problems you’ve had with Southeastern. If, however, you’re unhappy with our response, you can write to Passenger Focus or London TravelWatch at the addresses below. These are independent statutory bodies established to assist passengers with unresolved complaints.

Passenger Focus

Address:  Freepost (RRRE-ETTC-LEET), PO Box 4257, Manchester M60 3AR

Telephone:  0300 123 2350
Fax:  0845 850 1392
Email:  advice@passengerfocus.org.uk
Website:  passengerfocus.org.uk

London TravelWatch

Address:  6 Middle Street, London EC1A 7JA

Telephone:  020 7505 9000
Fax:  020 7505 9003
Email:  enquiries@londontravelwatch.org.uk
Website:  londontravelwatch.org.uk

London TravelWatch covers the stations that we serve in the London Fares Zones and as far out as Dartford, Swanley, Otford and Sevenoaks.

Passenger Focus covers all the stations that we serve in Kent and East Sussex beyond Dartford, Swanley, Otford and Sevenoaks.

If you’re delayed on the services of another operator and you write to us, then we’ll ensure your letter gets sent on to the right people in the company involved. We’ll write to let you know to whom we’ve forwarded your letter.

If you write about a problem with your Oyster Card or Oyster PAYG then please include your card details. In most cases, we will forward your correspondence to the Oyster Helpdesk at Transport for London.
 

Other useful information

Our trains

We aim to clean all our trains every day, we’re proud that they’re clean and smart – we intend to keep it that way. Additionally, we try to ensure that every train which leaves London is cleared of newspapers and litter before the start of its journey. All our trains can accommodate wheelchairs. The locations of wheelchair spaces are clearly indicated by signs on the outside of the train doors.

Carriage of cycles

Passengers with cycles are welcome on our services. However we’re only able to accommodate compact folded cycles at our busiest times – that is trains arriving in London, Monday to Friday between 07.00 and 09.59, and leaving London between 16.00 and 18.59. Compact folded bikes can be carried at any time on our services, provided they’re folded before being taken onto the platform and remain folded while onboard the train.

If you are starting your journey from one of the following boundary stations, and travelling away from London, and space is available you can take your cycle with you at any time. These stations are: Gillingham, Otford, and Tonbridge. Similarly, if your journey starts in Kent or East Sussex and ends before these stations, you can take your cycle with you at any time, subject to available space.

Cycles must be removed from the onboard space for wheelchairs if a passenger using a wheelchair requires it.

We’re working with Local Authorities and Network Rail to increase and improve the cycle storage facilities at our stations.
 

Our staff

All our customer-facing staff at stations and on trains will be pleased to assist you with any aspect of your journey. Our staff are trained to be:

smartly dressed, easily recognisable and wearing name badges; on hand to assist you, particularly if services are disrupted; and courteous, helpful and willing to deal with your problems.
 

Our stations

We’re committed to continually improving the facilities and appearance of our stations so that they’re welcoming to our passengers. During the course of our franchise we will install more ticket gates and help points and carry out a comprehensive repair and painting programme.

We’ll also be investing in improving accessibility at our stations.
Where level or step-free, access cannot be achieved, we’ll provide alternative means of transport for disabled passengers from your local station to the most suitable accessible station. You can arrange alternative transport through the assisted travel line.

We aim, where possible, to provide additional car park and cycle spaces where they are needed.

Our stations will be well lit. Main stations and car parks will be regularly patrolled by uniformed security attendants from early morning until late at night.

We’ll be investing to improve passenger security on trains and at stations and will work with the British Transport Police to combat crime and anti-social behaviour on our railway. All new CCTV systems will produce good colour images with downloading facilities providing evidence admissible in a court of law.

We’re committed to being an environmentally responsible company, reducing our energy consumption and recycling waste wherever possible.

We’re working hard to continue to improve the service we provide to all our passengers, and we hope you notice the progress we make.