Residential Travel is commuting from your permanent place of residence (i.e. your home address) to your permanent place of regular employment (i.e. your office, depot or station) or education (i.e. a university, college or school)

Employees can have only one place of regular employment and a child dependent one place of regular education. 

Residential travel facilities are available to active safeguarded (holding the Staff Travel Card) and non-safeguarded employees (holding the Rail Staff Leisure Card). There are no residential travel facilities available to holders of the RST Online Leisure Card. 

How to get residential travel

• Using a card issued by their TOC that allows residential travel
• If safeguarded using a Residential Pass or Status Pass
• Through a staff discounted (priv-rate) season or flexi season ticket. Apply online Ticket using the Employee Residential Travel (XX01) or Employee Priv-rate Flexi Season (XX32) form.

Daily staff discounted (priv-rate) tickets are not valid for residential travel

Please note:

• Employees who choose to purchase their season ticket at the station will need to apply to RST for an authorisation form for each season ticket they buy.
• Employees who choose to purchase their season ticket from RST Online will have continuous authority to purchase consecutive season tickets or flexi-season tickets for their journey providing their home address and work location remain unchanged. This means there is no need to apply when you wish to purchase a season ticket for the same journey.
• Flexi Seasons are not available for all rail journeys. This includes journeys entirely within the Scotrail network, the Transport for Wales network, the MerseyRail travel area or the London Fare Zones Area.
• For holders of the Rail Staff Leisure Card there is no discount on zonal Travelcards retailed by TfL.

How to get residential travel

• Using a card issued by their TOC that allows residential travel for school/college/university only
• Through a staff discounted (priv-rate) season or flexi season ticket. Apply online Ticket using the Dependant Season Ticket (XX31) or Dependant Flexi-Season Ticket (XX33) form.

Daily staff discounted (priv-rate) tickets are not valid for residential travel or for travel to work such as Saturday jobs or any paid work.

Please note:

• Where dependent children attend an educational establishment on a full-time basis for school or advanced education and live away from the family home in term time accommodation, then travel between the term time accommodation and the school/university/college is considered residential travel. This means that they cannot use any staff discounted (priv-rate) daily tickets or Staff Travel Card or Status Passes for travel to college/university, etc.
• Occasional travel between the family home and the term time accommodation (i.e. at the start and end of term, at weekends or occasionally mid-week) is considered leisure travel so priv rate tickets can be used for these journeys.
• For holders of the Rail Staff Leisure Card there is no discount on zonal Travelcards retailed by TfL.

A spouse/ partner is not generally eligible for any staff discounted (priv-rate) residential travel, or free residential travel using a TOC specific leisure only pass.

There is an exception if the spouse or partner is in full-time education and not working. Please contact RST for more information.

Daily staff discounted (priv-rate) tickets are not valid for residential travel.

Photo ID is a mandatory requirement for all employees and child dependents (including those under age 16) to support the use of a Priv Rate paper Season Ticket.

For those who hold an RST Season Ticket Smartcard and have their Season Ticket loaded onto it, no further Photo ID is required.

For those with a paper ticket, the valid form of Photo ID to support the staff discounted (priv rate) Season Ticket is the RST Photo ID.

To obtain an RST Photocard, please submit the Employee RST Photocard ID (XX43) form.

Residential Passes are issued to safeguarded and BTP employees where the journey is within the mileage allowance available to them, or the cost of their journey is less than the mileage discount available for the cost of a season ticket.

Residential passes which are no longer valid for a journey (either due to a change of home address or work location) must be returned to Rail Staff Travel immediately they are invalid.

The use of Status Passes for residential travel is only permitted where the Status Pass explicitly states that it can be used for residential travel and this is always for an active employee only.

For tickets bought at stations, an employee must submit the season ticket to Rail Staff Travel to authorise the refund and complete Refund Form XX11.  Rail Staff Travel will accept a photo of the Season Ticket cut into four pieces and a photo taken and emailed to Rail Staff Travel. You must also include an image of the ticket before you cut it up so all details can be viewed.

Rail Staff Travel will process the refund for tickets purchased via RST Online or send the ticket to the appropriate department within the Train Operating Company to process the refund.

For tickets bought through RST Online, the employee can submit the refund request in the ‘Your Account’ section of RST Online.