Transcript Rail industry working in partnership with local communities

Partnerships to reduce
imported risk
Aidan Nelson
International Railway Safety Conference
Denver, October 8th, 2008
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Daily individual fatalities
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Public behaviour has potentially
catastrophic consequences
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On Britain’s railways….
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Staff are assaulted, perhaps, every couple of hours
Suicide is a near daily experience
An adult trespasser dies weekly
Road vehicles are struck on level crossings twice a
month
Perhaps monthly, a pedestrian is killed on a level
crossing
Road vehicle occupants are killed on level
crossings several times a year
A child dies trespassing once or twice each year
And, perhaps once a decade, passengers and ontrain staff are killed when a road vehicle is struck
by a train
Why is there a problem?
Railways divide communities
Authorised crossing points are limited
Development creates desire lines that are
not satisfied by authorised crossing points
Railway lands are a destination for play
and criminal activity
Societal predilection for the short cut, antisocial behaviour and crime
We all think we are invincible when
driving!
Why a partnership approach?
 The underlying causes of these issues all
originate in the wider community
 In Britain, transport providers have a
statutory duty to work with agencies to
address wider community safety issues
 Rail-only approaches have limited impact
on risks and effects on:
Rail services
Customer satisfaction
Rail industry [and other agency] costs of
negative public behaviour
Feeds back to consumers and tax payers
The rise of community safety
 A concept from the early 1990s
 Holistic, multi-agency approach covering
situational and social dimensions
 Quality of life as well as crime reduction
 Six elements crucial to multi-agency crime
reduction work:
structure, leadership, information, identity,
durability and resources
 An early initiative “safer cities” had limited
rail involvement
Local priorities
 Central to community safety concept is
role of local communities in setting local
priorities for action
 Legislation in late 1990s began to
enshrine principle of local multi-agency
approach
 Railway boundary is an artificial divide
that has constrained thinking in:
Rail businesses
The wider community
Public agencies tasked with addressing
community safety risks including highway
safety
External to rail developments
 Legislation in 1998 required local
authorities and police to work together:
develop a strategy
lead development of multi-agency approaches to
identified local priorities
 New Crime and Disorder Reduction
Partnerships (CDRPs) did not exclude the
railway
But not recognised by an insular rail sector
 Many CDRPs ignored the issues – often
the same – that sat inside the railway
boundary
Engaging transport providers
 Legislation in 2002 specifically referenced
the role of transport providers
 Six years on, only limited recognition of
obligations placed on rail businesses
 Where engagement is occurring the British
Transport Police (BTP) is generally the
catalyst
 But, engaging with all CDRPs would swamp
BTP and rail businesses
 Need for rail to:
Prioritise on the basis of industry “black spots”
Think as one at local level
Neighbourhood policing
 Rolled out nationally by 2008
 Local communities identify issues
Then tackle together with police, public service
providers and other partners
 BTP are included - good progress in
developing neighbourhood policing teams
 National arrangements can now be seen as
having fully embraced the railway
environment
 However, the reciprocal is not yet universal
Rail CDRPs
 Emerged because of lack of industry buy-in
to broader community safety concept
 Pilot rail CDRPs now operational on the
national network with BTP engaging rail
businesses as partners
 Too early to determine community safety
benefits from this approach
But - where rail CDRPs are in place a greater
common ground between BTP and rail businesses
 More effective local tasking
Transport for London (TfL)
 TfL has embraced national model
Routinely considers impact of decisions on crime,
disorder and wider community safety
 This feeds through to doing all that it reasonably
can to prevent:
crime (including trespass) and disorder
substance misuse
anti-social behaviour
 Community safety strategy and supporting plan
follow the national model
 An exemplar approach for main-line rail to consider
Islands of good practice
 Adopt-a-station schemes
 Diversionary tactics like No Messin!
 Teaching Zone
But no new developments in two years
Teachers looking elsewhere
Businesses more inclined to go-it-alone
 School visits programme
 Restorative justice initiatives
 CDRP engagement; e.g. Safer Leeds partnership
 Pilot Road – Rail Partnership Groups
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Safer roads
 Principle of partnership adopted at county level
Too often focused on photo-enforcement?
Transport for London see as in scope of their
community safety strategy
Establish road – rail partnership sub-groups
 However, many in the roads sector see level
crossings as purely a rail sector issue
 But, decisions to abuse level crossings start on
the public highway
 Enable, Engineer, Educate, Enforce [Evaluate]
Headline statistics
 Road deaths
(2006, source ETSC)
 France
 Germany
 United Kingdom
 Sweden
 Netherlands
4,709
5,091
3,300
445
730
 Level crossing deaths
 Sweden
 Netherlands
France
 Germany
 United Kingdom
:
/
/
/
/
/
75
62
57
49
45
per
per
per
per
per
million
million
million
million
million
population
population
population
population
population
:
( 2004-5, source ERA)
14 / 1.54 per million population
18 / 1.11 per million population
38 / 0.61 per million population
45 / 0.55 per million population
7 / 0.12 per million population
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A rail perspective
 Collisions with road vehicles on level
crossings are at or close to being the top
train accident risk on railways worldwide
 Profile of this issue rises as railways reduce
the risks within their direct control
 Level crossing risks are shared between the
interfacing modes but too often seen as a
railway risk
 Catastrophic accidents at level crossings in
Great Britain: Hixon (1968), Lockington
(1984) and Ufton Nervet (2004)
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A roads perspective
 Collisions with road vehicles on level
crossings are near the bottom of the risk on
the country’s roads
 Profile of this issue will remain low as the
numbers killed on the roads is so high
 Level crossing risks may be shared between
the interfacing modes but they are
predominately a railway risk
 In the four years since a train occupant died
in a level crossing accident 12,000 have died
on the roads
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Schizophrenic attitudes
 We’re a rich country, we can afford to
make our railways totally safe
 I’m invincible when behind the wheel of
my car
 A train driver ran a red light: disgusting
 A car driver ran a red light: we all do it,
don’t we?
 3,500 killed on the roads: minor news
 One passenger killed in a train accident:
front page news for days
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The challenge:
Coalitions of the willing
 National drive + local response
 In Europe opportunity for multi-national drive
 Players:
 Department for Transport
 Rail / highways / Planning authorities
 Accident investigation bodies
 Local and railway police
 Commercial operators of road vehicles / farmers
 Professional & amateur road vehicle drivers
 Road vehicle and driver licensing authorities
 Cyclists / Pedestrians / Mobility impaired
 Suppliers / researchers / innovators
 Responsible media and advertisers
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