On this page:
Section 1: Information and ticket sales
Online
- Customers can plan a journey, check the variety of ticket options and prices and purchase tickets through our online ticket sales platform.
- Train tickets and timetables are available online and can be views in a mobile friendly format, pdf formats are also available. Visit our train timetables page.
- Live information on train arrivals and departures, highlighting delays or disruption, are available on our website. Platform numbers for any station are also available but may change at short notice. Visit our plan my journey page.
- At South Western Railway we manage 187 stations. We know it is important to have information on station facilities and whether staff are available, this can be found in our stations finder and updates are provided here.
- If you need assistance navigating the station or a ramp to get on your train, our passenger assistance service can help. Detailed information can be found on our Assisted Travel page where a booking form is available.
- Alternatively, you can call 0800 52 82 100 (freephone) to speak to our in-house Assisted Travel Team, 24-hours a day (except 25th and 26 December).
- Or National Rail Enquiries also operate a 24-hour dedicated travel assistance line by calling 08000 22 37 20.
- Our Text Relay service 18001 0800 52 82 100. Using the text relay service is easy – simply add 18001 before the number or download the Text Relay app
. A Relay assistant will type back anything the hearing person says at the other end of the call
- We strive to be transparent when we encounter disruption and have now agreed a new set of industry Customer Pledges
These Customer Pledges are supported by all train companies and will:
- Explain what our commitments are and what we’re doing to make things better
- Bring together good practice from across the rail and other industries to help you during disruption
- Bring consistency across the rail industry
- Allow for local and regional flexibility
- Demonstrate that we truly care about you, and we put our customers first
- Bring together good practice from across the railway – and other industries – to support you during disruption and get you where you need to be as quickly as possible
At the station and on board our trains
- All SWR stations have information screens available showing upcoming departures and their calling points. Information on any disruption is also shown on the information screens.
- Many of our stations are staffed, and all SWR stations have help points where you can get assistance or information.
- You can check whether a station has an available ticket office on our station information pages. Most of our stations also have ticket machines.
- Many of our stations have step free access and/or ramps. Get in touch with our station staff at staffed stations once you’ve arrived, and we’ll take care of the rest. If you’re at an unstaffed station, make your way to the platform, and we’ll do our best to let the on-board team know you’re boarding.
- All our services have a guard on board and in the case of delays the guard will announce information as appropriate.
- Automated on-board announcements and information screens are also available on board our trains.
Section 2: Punctuality and general principles to cope with disruption to services
At South Western Railway we know that you want a safe, reliable, and punctual service. We’re committed to providing this, to help deliver the best service we can. We continually measure our service reliability and punctuality and report on how we are performing against targets which are set in our Passenger’s Charter.
Disruption
When disruption does occur, real-time information on how to travel will be shown on our plan my journey page and on information screens at our stations. Members of staff will also assist at staffed stations, and we have help-points available at all stations that are manned 24/7.
Please see our Customer Pledges page which details our commitment to supporting you during disruption and ensuring you get to where you need to be as quickly as possible.
Section 3: Cleanliness of rolling stock and station facilities
As a responsible train operator, the health and safety of our customers and colleagues is our priority. We have regularly scheduled cleaning of all of our trains. When cleaning we also play close attention to commonly touched surfaces such as ticket machines, door buttons, and grab rails.
Air conditioning and air quality
Most of our trains are equipped with air conditioning. You can find out more about which trains have air conditioning and information on our new Arterio trains on our train fleet pages.
Section 4: Customer satisfaction survey
The National Rail Passenger Survey was stopped as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and is planned to be replaced by an industry survey led by Rail Delivery Group in 2024. We continue to monitor customer feedback through our Voice of the Customer programme as well our Customer Contact Centre & Social Media Team. We use this insight to inform business decisions.
In 2023 we’ll be introducing Arterio our brand-new fleet of 90 trains that will transform travel on our Reading, Windsor and South West London suburban routes.
We’re investing a massive £1 billion in this new fleet of trains which will offer more capacity, quicker journey times and better reliability and punctuality for our customers.
We’re also investing in our station with a £1.0 million repainting programme and new , benches, toilet and waiting room refurbishments, and some new waiting shelters.
Section 5: Complaint handling, refunds, and compensation
Our Complaints Handling Procedure sets out full details of our commitment to customers who choose to comment about our service. When you make a complaint, it comes through to our dedicated in-house Customer Service Centres, where well-trained, professional staff will follow it to resolution.
We monitor the number of customer complaints per 100,000 journeys, and are constantly striving to reduce the number of complaints received.
Our years run from 1st April to 31st March and include 13 four-week periods - shown as "Px" in the table above.
South Western Railway Continuous Improvement Report 2025-2026
Our Complaints Handling Procedure sets out full details of our commitment to customers who choose to comment about our service. When you make a complaint, it comes through to our dedicated in-house Customer Service Centres, where well-trained, professional staff will follow it to resolution.
We are always looking to do things better - and we want to keep improving your experience. We actively share your complaints and work with colleagues across the business to ensure we are applying any learnings. You can find a summary of what we have achieved over the last year below.
Improving Complaints handling
Between April 2025 and May 2026, South Western Railway (SWR) strengthened its approach to assessing and improving the passenger experience of the complaints process.
We have implemented weekly multidisciplinary meetings involving the Accessibility and Inclusion Lead, On Train, and Station Management teams. These sessions provided a structured mechanism to evaluate the clarity, timeliness, and accuracy of responses, ensuring that improvements were informed by real time operational insight.
SWR has also strengthened its assessment of the passenger experience by embedding Root Cause Analysis (RCA) into the handling of complex complaints. This has enabled Customer Relations to identify any underlying systemic issues, recurring customer frustrations, and opportunities for process improvement. These changes have increased both the quality and timeliness of our responses, ensuring that customers receive more accurate explanations and that emerging issues are escalated promptly to the relevant operational teams.
Following a comprehensive review of the quality and tone of voice we have now adopted a more person-centred communication approach. This has included improving the consistency of decisions related to refunds and compensation.
Early indicators of improvement include reduced escalations, more confident and accurate responses from Executive Contact Officers.
These actions collectively improved internal response times strengthened information flow between teams and enhanced the overall passenger experience of the complaints process.
Listening to our customer concerns
Last year SWR trialled the use of an AI driven analytics tool that analyses complaint data directly from the CIM system. The trial is fully aligned with the ORR’s Code of Practice and enables Senior Leaders to quickly pinpoint customer frustration, identify emerging patterns and trends, and determine where operational focus should be directed.
We have also rewritten our management information dashboards using Microsoft Power BI. This means we can share what matters to our customers with frontline mangers more quickly.
During the year 2025/26 we received 24,550 complaints related to our service.
Complaint volumes between P1 and P13 have been very similar each period. The only significant increase was in Periods 4 and 5 (June to August 2025) due to the service being impacted by major infrastructure issues and operational incidents caused in the main by extreme weather (heat). SWR delivered 166,310,436 customer journeys between Period 1 and Period 13, resulting in an average of 14.79 complaints per 100,000 journeys. This represents a 1% reduction compared with the previous year, demonstrating a positive trend despite operational challenges.
Our rate for complaint response has remained well above the 95% service level target for response time between P1 and P13.
- Percentage of complaints responded to within 20 working days – 98.31%.
- Average response time working days – 5.31 down from 5.57 previous year.
Complaint Category Breakdown
Section 6: Assisted Travel
If you need assistance navigating the station or a ramp to get on your train, our passenger assistance service can help. Detailed information can be found on our Assisted Travel page where a booking form is available.
We are part of Passenger Assist which is a national system that all train companies are part of. Customers can request assistance for all parts of their journey, including help with purchasing tickets. We are committed to using this system and will provide assistance to anyone who books up to 2 hours in advance. SWR staff will provide this assistance at all our managed stations, and also at London Waterloo, Clapham Junction and Guildford stations, which are managed by Network Rail. At other stations, whether they be managed by another Train Operating Company or Network Rail, their staff will provide the same assistance.
Whether you book assistance in advance or not, our teams are here to help. Booking in advance with our Assisted Travel service helps to ensure that we can have everything in place to help you. The national booking system operates across the National Rail network.
At unstaffed stations, our on-train teams will provide assistance to board and leave the train and our 24-hour Assisted Travel team in the Contact Centre will discuss best options with the customer if they require further assistance through the station.
In addition to offering pre-booked assistance, SWR actively promotes a “Turn Up and Go” and an Assisted Boarding Points service, enabling customers requiring assistance to travel how they want to.
We have received a total number of 132,557 assistance bookings for South Western Railway for the 2025-2026 reporting period.
Additionally, we delivered a further 182,354 Turn Up & Go requests during that year.
Our Travel Assistance Card is a free card for anyone who may need that extra bit of help and find it difficult to ask. All our staff have been trained to recognise the card and if you show it to any member of our staff, they will help you as best they can. Our Travel Assistance Card can be requested at any of our stations, through our customer services team, or downloaded from our website.
Customers with Assistance Dogs can request an “Assistance Dog under seat” card which shows other customers that an assistance dog is underneath the seat. More information is available on this page.
Continuous improvements to our Passenger Assist service through customer feedback and complaint handling.
During the year 2024/25 we received 505 complaints related to accessibility
Section 7: Service Quality Excellence
Customers are at the heart of everything we do and in support of this we have implemented a Service Quality Excellence programme which assesses the standards at our Stations, on our Trains and our Customer Service. Every four weeks, our independent assessors travel across our network, looking at a number of criteria important to our customers, to ensure we are meeting the standards expected of us. 60 stations are assessed, along with 200 carriages and 110 customer service mystery shops.
We work hard to achieve high scores, but where we don’t meet the expected standard, we are committed to rectifying any issues identified within specific time frames, helping us to deliver high standards and excellent customer service to our customers.
Every 4 weeks, we will publish our performance. Scores are presented in 3 key parts (Stations, Trains & Customer Service) with each having its own Service Quality Areas.
