Compensation for Tube Passengers

Should commuters get compensated for a bad service?

Thanks to Steve Everett for letting me know that the passengers who were stuck on the Victoria Line for over two hours on Monday are to be given £100 each for the "distress" and "disruption" they were caused. This is quite unusual as none of the 150 passengers required medical attention and the compensation appears to have been unprompted & is possibly another way of blaming Metronet for the signal failure that led to the problems.

'TfL works hard to give passengers the best possible service but in this case the service wasn't up to scratch,' the spokesman said. 'Therefore we believe this one-off payment is the right thing to do given the distress caused to our passengers during their journey.'

This is great as I imagine it must have been fairly upsetting to be stuck on a tube for that long, not to mention the massive delay (although it could be argued that a hundred quid isn't enough). But I wonder how far TfL will go with compesation in the future? Is this setting a precedent?

We all know that we can get our fare back for being delayed by more than 15 minutes (although I wonder how many people do it because of the paperwork and simply forgetting about it). Perhaps all passengers on the Northern Line deserve compensation for the distress of travelling on the Misery Line.


Yesterday Metro reported that a woman is claiming compensation from Southern trains for alleged distress because the toilets on her train are rarely working. "She claims she has been forced to take early maternity leave because the trains cannot cope with her need to go to the toilet every 45 minutes." It'll be interesting to see if she wins!

I think I could quite rightly claim compensation every time I see that I have to get on a packed London Underground train. I know that it's going to be uncomfortable, I might get a crick in my neck. I might be stuck next to someone really sweaty and that causes me distress! I could also claim compensation for the amount of times I come across a chocolate machine on the Tube that isn't working. I have the expectation of getting chocolate and when I see it's not working, I'm distressed.

I bet a lawyer could probably have a field day working out the types of compensation we could get for bad service, delays and breakdowns on the Tube. Is there anything you feel you should be compensated for on your London Underground journey?

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, June 01, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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