World Consumer Day is celebrated every year on 15 March. This time its slogan is We are all consumers. We become consumers when we shop, use the bank or travel by train.
263 applications to start a proceeding and 184 other applications were filed with the Railway Passenger Rights’ Ombudsman in 2019. 30% of the proceedings were the appeals against no-ticket penalties, 24% - requests for compensation for late or cancelled trains and 19% - requests for reimbursement for unused tickets. Those are the details from the annual report by Railway Passenger Rights’ Ombudsman for 2019.
Almost 300 cases, including over 170 conciliatory proceedings, are the effects of one year’s work by the Rail Passenger Rights Ombudsman. One year ago, on 1 February 2017, Mr. Ignacy Góra, President of the Office of Rail Transport, appointed Ms Joanna Marcinkowska to the position of Ombudsman.
Ms. Joanna Marcinkowska, Rail Passenger Rights Ombudsman, and Mr. Radosław Pacewicz, Vice President of the Office of Rail Transport, met in the ORT office with representatives of the railway market operators. The objective of the meeting was to discuss the first period in operation of the Ombudsman and call attention to the most frequently repeated cases of complaints.
On 29 September 2017, visitors to the Office of Rail Transport booth at the TRAKO 2017 International Railway Fair in Gdańsk had the opportunity to talk to Joanna Marcinkowska, Rail Passenger Rights Ombudsman.
The case may be that, due to train delay or cancellation, a Passenger incurs additional costs, sometimes significant ones, for example, the necessity to stay the night in a hotel or the loss of a flight connection. Principles of the operator’s liability in such cases are worth learning. You are welcome to read them.