The annual report of the Flemish Ombudsman shows a striking increase in the number of complaints about canceled journeys at De Lijn. The transport company received 72.694 complaints from travelers last year, a large increase compared to 2018, which already topped the list with 52.528 complaints. These complaints mainly concern punctuality, services and tickets. The number of complaints about punctuality has even doubled compared to 2018.
no improvement was observed
According to De Lijn's sustainability report and complaints report from September 2019, one in four complaints concerned the punctuality of trams and buses, which are severely affected by traffic jams. The growing number of canceled rides was particularly high for travelers. Customer service received almost 8.000 complaints about this, a third more than in 2017. Despite an earlier signal, the complaints continued to rise and De Lijn did nothing to counter this downward spiral.
Last year, 16.055 complaints were resolvedt via the Flemish Ombudsman Service. That is much more than in 2018, when it concerned 10.678 resolved complaints. This is in line with the ambition expressed by Ombudsman Bart Weekers last year, namely to reach 100.000 solutions over the next five years, or 20.000 a year.
Flemish Ombudsman
As an ombudsman, Bart Weekers tries to ensure a relationship between the citizen and the administration, in which there is room to reconcile reasonable positions. The Flemish Ombudsman previously paid Google to no longer appear in the sponsored search results at the top when people type “complaint” and “De Lijn”. As a result of this search, his service was flooded with complaints about the transport company addressed directly to him.
The Ombudsman worked through so-called negative keywords. They must ensure that you do not appear in the sponsored results that appear at the top of those search terms. The ombudsman has 75.000 euros in advertising money per year and spends most of this on advertising via Google.
