The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), which runs the service, said it had agreed an exclusive contract with an Indian firm.

ATOC insisted that the change would not reduce the quality of the service.

The news came as an outsourcing firm said it was cutting more than 100 jobs at a rail inquiries centre in Yorkshire because of the India move.

Outsourcing firm Ventura said it was in consultations with staff at the facility in Wath-upon-Dearne.

Reduced usage

The number of calls to the service has fallen in recent years as a growing number of passengers use the internet, or the automated Train Tracker phone system, to access train times.

"Call centre operations now represent only some 7% of rail inquiries and this proportion continues to fall, with the internet rapidly growing in importance for passengers looking for journey information," said ATOC.

"In the last financial year, the amount of calls handled fell by 24.5%."

ATOC said its internal monitoring showed that levels of customer satisfaction were the same for call centres in the UK and India.

It added that: "We can achieve significant savings by moving to one supplier and it makes sense to do so."

Rail consumer watchdog Passenger Focus said it would monitor the effect of the call centre move on rail users.

"Passengers care that telephone and other information services are correct, useful and remain free or low cost," said Passenger Focus chief executive Anthony Smith.

"Where they are based is not so relevant."

See also:

National Rail to outsource all calls to India

Times Online: July 16, 2009
Peter Stiff

National Rail Enquires is to outsource all calls to India in a cost-cutting move that puts more than 100 jobs at risk.

Call centre staff in India already handle about two thirds of the calls to the train times hotline, with the remaining enquires fielded in South Yorkshire by employees of Ventura, a UK business.

It is believed staff only found out about the change, which will take place from December, last night and that redundancies at Ventura are inevitable.

Ventura said it had entered into a 90 day consultation period with more than 100 employees and that it was in talks with other clients about additional work to help the company maintain work volume and minimise job cuts.

The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), which runs the services, said the group’s UK contract was coming to an end and that it was more cost effective to outsource the remaining calls to India.

It added that service levels would not be compromised by the move, with customer satisfaction equal for calls both to the UK and Indian centres.

The move comes after the number of calls to the hotline has fallen 25 per cent in the past year as passengers plan their journeys online rather than over the phone. Only 7 per cent of enquires are now telephone-based.

The decision by ATOC comes as a number of companies look to bring call centre jobs back from India to the UK, with BT revealing yesterday that it would bring at least 2,000 call centre jobs in India back to Britain. Powergen, Abbey and Orange have already closed some or all of their Indian call centre operations.