OO need not be dangerous

passengers but our fight for jobs today is about protecting your safety tomorrow.”

In addition to conducting research into rail safety, the RSSB also collates and publishes statistics of accident rates, helping focus effort on reducing them. These statistics record the passenger and public harm from boarding and alighting incidents, and the results come in a measure known as ‘fatalities and weighted injuries’ (FWI), which gives a measure of the rates of different types of incidents.

According to the RSSB’s 2014-15 annual report, over the last five years ‘fall between train and platform’ rates are in the range 1.31.9, ‘caught in train doors’ 0.6-0.7, ‘other alighting accident’ 2.3-3.1, and ‘other boarding accident’ 1.2-1.7. This shows that being caught in train doors is the least risky category.

The RSSB explains that the ‘other’ category generally comprises trips into or out of trains. In either case, having a guard or on-board supervisor makes no difference to the trip, although either of them or other passengers (or the driver if you’re spread-eagled on the platform) can summon help.

RSSB has also examined real DOO - that is, having the driver as the sole member of staff on board, rather than plans such as Southern’s to have a second member on board (which RMT is fighting).

Dating from 2014, this report looked at extending DOO onto regional lines. It notes that having just a driver makes it impossible for passengers needing assistance to simply turn up and board. The clearest example of such assistance would be having staff on hand to deploy ramps to allow wheelchairs on or off trains. Given that the report considers regional lines, it’s very unlikely that there would be level access between platform and train.

The report says: “Assisted travel would have to move to a booking system where passengers who required assistance would have to book in advance where they would be met to be assisted on and off the train. Hazards arise if people turn up without a booking and attempt to board, but it is believed that the majority of cases would be captured by educating passengers.”

I suspect that education would just teach potential passengers not to bother with rail. That reinforces the case for having a second staff member on trains, although they need not be a guard.

RSSB notes that a driver alone may find it difficult to control passengers if a train is badly delayed. He may be busy trying to discover or fix a problem, and be unable to keep broadcasting messages to reassure passengers. These situations can easily run out of control, with passengers opening doors to escape, meaning that the train cannot then move.

I witnessed this in Manchester a couple of years ago, on a very crowded tram that was being held just outside Victoria station because the tram in front had failed. Eventually we were evacuated because, despite the broken tram being moved, we could not get all the doors shut at the same time to allow us to move. And that was with several staff on hand to help.

There is a plan to help lone drivers keep contact with passengers via a modification to train GSM-R radios that allow control office staff to broadcast directly over train tannoys. This allows the driver to concentrate on fixing the problem.

This 2014 report matches the conclusion of 2015’s when it says: “A broad analysis of incidents (exact comparisons are impossible) and the related risk levels shows that there is no significant difference in the number of dispatch incidents between DOO(P) and conventional dispatch, suggesting that if used at appropriate locations, DOO(P) dispatch is not necessarily associated with an increased risk.”

It’s unpalatable to the rail unions, the RMT in particular, but recorded safety statistics and several studies do not support their claims that DOO is unsafe.