National Rail – North and East External Disruption
North and East Route External Disruption
Customer: Network Rail
CLIENT BRIEF
Network Rail North and East Route sought to take a more proactive approach to reducing external disruption, especially relating to trespass and vandalism, and consequently set up several schemes to improve the situation. There was a perception that this work was a ‘more of the same’ approach being carried out by overworked staff who additionally have a day job to do and that this would, in time, lead to a return to the status quo, with achievements and improvements not being sustainable.
Following our work on Forward Facing CCTV, Sarax were retained to:
- Assess schemes currently being undertaken to reduce external disruption on the North and East Route: their practicality, effectiveness, and likely effectiveness in the future
- Consider the possibilities for ‘supercharging’ efforts using technology and alternative approaches to those methods traditionally undertaken
- Provide a comprehensive report identifying the options available to improve current ways of working and introduce new ways of working; describing what is involved in doing that and what the impacts may be, including practical recommendations for implementing change.
WHAT WE DID
We carried out a fast time discovery. We quickly understood that the main themes were:
- Trespass (in all its’ varieties) and the response processes to it
- Schools and Community
- Mental Health
- Metal theft
- Bridge Strikes
- Level Crossings
- CCTV
- Strategic leadership
HOW WE DID IT
We carried out stakeholder interviews, site visits, research, and data collection to build a picture of what the Route was doing and how this was reflected in a National and International context. We consulted within NR, British Transport Police (BTP), Train Operators, suppliers, and innovators.
THE WORKS
We identified that there was much good work going on but that this was not advertised and consequently seemed to go largely unrecognised. Although post- Incident analysis and mitigation was comprehensive, post- Mitigation analysis was rarely undertaken, and good practice was likewise not widely advertised. Mitigation work was reactive rather than policy led and efforts overall lacked cohesion and direction (except when driven from the working level).
We found that collaboration opportunities with external bodies were generally incident led and at a working level whereas opportunities would be better exploited as part of policy led engagement.
Mental Health was identified as a key area of concern and there were opportunities for doing something different in this arena.
Opportunities existed for supercharging engagement with schools allowing a more focussed approach which would target a greater number of pupils with fewer site visits and provide a more effective method for impact measurement.
TOP 5 BENEFITS
- Providing a comprehensive contextual report identifying how each element was being undertaken, its’ impact and sustainability
- Identifying areas for change and improvement through 39 recommendations
- Identifying key gaps in strategic leadership
- Identifying the potential for taking a different approach when tackling mental health issues
- Providing technology based supercharging opportunities for interaction in the field of education.