Rail companies are using evidence on the accessibility of their rail services that has come from “mystery shopping” exercises carried out by freelance workers pretending to be disabled, Disability News Service can reveal.
Analysis of assignments offered by a market research firm used by multiple rail companies shows that it regularly uses “role-playing” passengers who pretend to be disabled to carry out mystery shopping assessments of services at rail stations and on trains.
One train company said this morning (Thursday) that it had been unaware that non-disabled people were being used instead of disabled customers.
And it said that data from surveys carried out by the company – Mystery Shoppers Ltd (MSL), which is based in Holsworthy, Devon – was regularly passed on to the Department for Transport.
Furious disabled campaigners spoke out this week to express their alarm at the practice.
They fear that role-playing passengers have been providing inaccurate information about the accessibility of the transport system, which has been used by rail companies to justify plans to close ticket offices and make rail staff redundant.
At least some of the false information is also passed on to the government and again is likely to provide an overly-positive picture of accessible transport.
An investigation by Disability News Service (DNS) has revealed that rail companies have been using MSL to test their services for more than three years.
Those carrying out the mystery shopping exercises at stations and on trains are paid a small fee and travel expenses.
The “assignments” are advertised on the company’s website and in emails to those signed up to the service, but many of the tasks that request a passenger to test how the rail company performs in providing assistance to disabled people say they can be carried out by passengers who “can role play that they need assistance”.
One task, from 2023, described the assignment, relating to a visit to Haywards Heath station in Sussex, as “an assitance [sic] shop, which can be a genuine need, or role played, here are some examples – Visual impairment – Hearing impairment – Physical disabilities, such as using a wheelchair or walking aids”.
A recent assignment for the Brighton area says the passenger “will need to roleplay/present with an assistance need”, which “can be a hearing/sight impairment or it can even be a hidden disability such as autism”.
A current assignment seen by DNS last week asked for someone to “present a simple question to the station staff member” at Market Harborough station, Leicestershire, and added: “We are looking for shoppers who require assistance or can role play that they need assistance whilst visiting the station.”
Another was looking for someone willing to use a Southern service from London Victoria to East Grinstead in West Sussex, and it asked: “We are looking for shoppers that would need assistance whilst travelling, to purchase a train ticket, ask a staff member a question and feed back on the experience.”
It then added: “You can either have or role play requiring assistance (eg help with boarding a train).”
And an assignment for Swindon, in Wiltshire, said the mystery shopper would need “to have or present with an additional need such as a disability or mobility need”.
The freelance mystery shoppers are often told by MSL: “If you get your first 5 completed in good time you may be able to complete many more!!”
This could mean that those who are role-playing being disabled people could be responsible for multiple fake results that are then being fed back to train companies, and probably also the government.
Sarah Leadbetter, national campaigns officer for The National Federation of the Blind of the UK, said her first reaction when hearing about the use of mystery shoppers who are role-playing being disabled was “anger and frustration”.
She said: “They have not got the right lived experience. They can’t walk in our shoes. They won’t have a clue.
“This is a very sneaky, disgusting way to make figures look a lot better than they really are.”
Leadbetter, who continues to experience significant problems with securing the assistance she needs to travel safely on the rail system, said she believed the assignments completed by role-playing passengers will be providing the rail companies and the government with an overly positive picture of the support provided to disabled passengers.
She fears this could be used to fuel fresh plans by the industry and government to close ticket offices across the rail network.
She said: “They can’t get away with it. It’s disgusting.”
Emily Yates, co-founder of the Association of British Commuters, said: “Researching disabled people’s access needs by role-playing would be shocking at the best of times, but is particularly grotesque given this government’s record on rail consultations.
“It has been many months since the collapse of proposals to close every ticket office in the country, and a three-year delay since the government first promised a ‘National Rail Accessibility Strategy’ consultation.
“Passengers have been shouting about the issues, and activists have published mountains of evidence to prove widespread breaches of the Equality Act.
“Yet, here is the railway conducting secret, low-quality research through a company that clearly has no rail accessibility expertise behind it.
“There are more than enough access experts with real lived experience to design credible research projects and gain genuine feedback on the problems with the railway.
“Whoever is behind this research – whether train operators, Rail Delivery Group, or Great British Railways – it will have zero credibility with disabled people as well as railway professionals.”
Sam Jennings, a disabled activist whose new website #DisabledByTheRailway highlights the access barriers faced by disabled rail passengers – and shows how railway staff are often disabled people’s “reasonable adjustment” and ensure the system is accessible – said it was “another low blow from the industry”.
She said: “I’m disappointed, but not surprised at all, because they’ve got a funny relationship with disabled people.
“They only want the disabled people that nod along and agree with everything.”
Jennings said the information provided by MSL would be completely invalid.
She said: “Until you’ve actually had the impairment, you won’t notice the nuance and the different things that could really be dangerous. You don’t have that knowledge.
“It’s ridiculous. What they’re doing is dishonest, it makes a mockery of it.”
She said the use of role-playing mystery shoppers demonstrated the “rubbish” attitude of the rail industry to disabled passengers.
She said: “There are specialist firms out there that disabled people with a range of impairments can sign up to, so it’s shoddy on the part of the mystery shopping company, but it’s even shoddier on the rail industry for selecting it.
“I think they are probably using it as a really disingenuous way to make it look like things are better by cosplaying, by cripping-up, by role-playing.”
DNS approached three rail companies about their use of MSL.
Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which operates Southern, said it was unaware that MSL was using non-disabled people instead of disabled customers for mystery shops.
It said it uses MSL to carry out mystery shopping surveys as part of its quality control regime, and shares data from those surveys with the Department for Transport.
It also contracts MSL to carry out additional mystery shopping surveys designed to help it improve its service for disabled customers.
Carl Martin, GTR’s accessibility lead, said: “We were unaware that non-disabled people were being used in place of disabled customers for mystery shops, and we are urgently discussing with our supplier the circumstances in which they use this approach.
“At GTR we are always looking for feedback to improve customer service, and mystery shopping surveys are just one of the tools we use.
“We also have an access advisory panel of disabled customers who use our services and provide invaluable advice, which informs our staff training and the processes we use to improve the service we give our disabled customers.”
Great Western Railway (GWR) refused to answer several questions about its use of MSL, including whether its data was being passed on to the Department for Transport, and whether it was aware that MSL was using “role-playing” non-disabled passengers instead of disabled people.
But a GWR spokesperson said: “The mystery shopping programme looks at how colleagues respond to specific journey enquiries from customers.”
He added: “We use both disabled and non-disabled real-life mystery shoppers to carry out this work, and our supplier makes this clear when advertising for researchers.
“However, this is just one small part of our wider research in this area.”
He said GWR also partners with several charities not led by disabled people, and runs its own “passenger-led Accessibility Advisory Panel, Assisted Travel post-journey research and customer satisfaction analysis”.
East Midlands Railway (EMR) refused to answer questions about its use of MSL, but a spokesperson did not dispute that EMR used the company and its role-playing mystery shoppers.
He said in a statement: “The requirement set for us is to measure the assistance asked for at stations and on train – which anyone can request.
“We are not asked to report on specific types of disability as part of this process.
“The information required is whether the assistance was delivered by friendly and helpful staff in a timely manner.”
He said EMR also had its own internal mystery shopper programme “that engages with customers with lived experiences who audit our services from their perspective”, and an accessibility and inclusion panel.
Mystery Shoppers Ltd issued a statement yesterday (Wednesday) in which it admitted paying mystery shoppers to role-play being disabled passengers.
It also said it would now carry out an internal review of its “communication and practices”.
And it appeared to suggest that the rail companies using its services were aware that it often used role-playing mystery shoppers instead of disabled people.
But it refused to say how long it had been allowing role-playing mystery shoppers to test rail assistance services, and which rail companies were using its services, and it appeared to insist that it would continue to use role-playing to test access on the railways.
In a statement emailed to DNS, it claimed its “intentions may have been misunderstood” but it insisted that “in some instances, it is necessary for us to use role play in testing the accessibility of certain services”.
It claimed role-playing was “a vital tool in mystery shopping, used to ensure that a wide range of service experiences are thoroughly tested”.
And it said: “It is fully communicated to clients that mystery shoppers are not real customers and the assessment form the mystery shopper completes is designed only to measure objectively what took place, with questions focusing on factual information.
“Where there is use of role play, this is transparent to our clients.”
The statement added: “We understand and respect the concerns you’ve raised regarding the representation of disabled individuals in accessibility assessments.
“Our aim is never to diminish or misrepresent the experiences of people living with disabilities and we would always choose to allocate the assignments to those with a genuine need as a priority.”
It claimed it had a “dedicated accessibility testing mystery shopper panel on our database”, but it added: “Whilst we are always continuing to strive to increase the size of our accessibility testing panel, we have carefully considered our approach and decided that, when it does not compromise data integrity, role-playing is a valuable tool that enables us to thoroughly and objectively assess services and facilities.”
The statement added: “The emails that have been sent to you by the mystery shopper cover a range of different assignments and projects.
“It is apparent from your email that these emails have been perceived in a way we would not intend.
“We will conduct an internal review to see where we may be able to make improvements to our communication and practices to ensure it is clear to all who read them that role playing an assistance need is conducted with the utmost respect and sensitivity.”
Picture by Office of Rail and Road
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