TUBE union RMT is demanding a ‘full and transparent formal investigation’ into the recent Canning Town overcrowding incident and calls for all London Underground station control rooms to be fully staffed.
RMT said on Thursday that there ‘must be no cover-up’ over an incident last week where a passenger fell between the train and the platform at Canning Town.
This exposed the growing problem of overcrowding and its impact on the Platform/Train interface and makes a nonsense of LU’s move to de-staff station control rooms.
The union has demanded a ‘full and transparent formal investigation’ and has listed the concerns raised as one of a growing number of safety-critical issues that must be addressed by the new London Mayor and his transport officials.
In the incident last Thursday, May 26, Canning Town Jubilee Line and DLR platforms ended up dangerously overcrowded after the passenger fell under the train as growing numbers of people ended up being shunted from one part of the station to the other.
Those at the sharp end ended up having no idea of passenger numbers and the scale of the overcrowding problems owing to the fact that the state-of-the-art control room – with communications, CCTV and emergency monitoring equipment – has been left permanently unstaffed due to the cuts to station numbers that RMT has been fighting.
The incident, which has appalled members of the public and which has made it on to YouTube, is one of several safety-critical incidents that have occurred since London Underground decided to effectively close many of their hi-tech station and expensively-equipped control rooms because of staffing cuts.
Major and busy stations including Canning Town, West Ham and Fulham Broadway are all victims of these cuts.
RMT has warned that the Canning Town incident will not be the last and points to the latest Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) annual report which warns that life-threatening incidents at the Platform/train Interface are on the rise.
RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said: ‘The appalling incident at Canning Town last week should be a wake-up call to London Underground that its staff cuts programme is compromising safety and, against the background of over-crowding on a daily basis, highlights the daily risks that are confronting both passengers and staff alike.
‘There must be no cover-up of this incident and RMT demands a full and transparent formal investigation to establish the facts.
‘With the industry safety watchdog, the RAIB, warning only this week of the growing dangers at the Passenger/Train Interface it is patently obvious that cutting staff against that backdrop represents a lethal gamble with rail safety.
‘Despite London Underground having fully functional hi-tech control rooms, with state-of-the-art equipment that warns in advance of an incident and controls communications, they have decided to close these in many places because of the cuts programme bulldozed through by the last Mayor.
‘RMT reps have been warning the company for weeks now of the lethal consequences of those cuts and those warnings are now coming home to roost.
‘RMT intends to raise this appalling situation as part of a wider agenda of safety-critical issues with the new Mayor and the union repeats its call for a halt to the disastrous London Underground job cuts programme.’
The RAIB Annual Report for 2015 said in its foreword:
‘Although the industry is making good progress in some areas, each year we review the types of accidents we have seen before, areas of learning and issues of particular concern.
‘These include recurrent underlying factors and areas of risk still to be fully addressed.
‘Important areas of learning this year (as further explained in chapter 4) include:
• safety of track workers;
• track quality (including staff resourcing and competence);
• freight train condition;
• platform train interface;
•level crossings; and
•earthworks and structures.
‘Other emerging themes also include weaknesses in safety validation of the design of on-track plant and ineffective implementation of the new regime governing the activities of Entities in Charge of Maintenance (for freight rolling stock).
‘A concerning feature of this year’s Annual Report is the number of events where luck has prevented an accident involving multiple fatalities. For example:
• At Hest Bank (08/2015) nine track workers saw an approaching train with just enough time to clear the track before it passed them while it was travelling at 98 mph (158 km/h).
• At Newbury (2015) a passenger train struck the top of a signal that had collapsed across the railway line. The train did not derail and there were no injuries. However, if a train had been travelling in the opposite direction the consequences could have been more severe because the signal fully obstructed that line and was capable of derailing a train.
• At Wootton Bassett Junction (08/2016) a train hauled by a steam locomotive passed a signal at danger on the approach to the junction. The train subsequently came to a stand across the junction shortly after the passage of a high speed train.
‘These events highlight the reasons why thorough and impartial accident investigation is so important in improving railway safety.’ In a section on Platform Train Interface (PTI), the report said:
‘By 31 December 2015, RAIB had published 12 reports and one bulletin into accidents to passengers at the platform train interface (PTI) associated with the movement of trains or trams.
‘While no new reports were published during 2015 there were three investigations into PTI incidents that were ongoing at 31 December 2015:
• Passenger trapped in train doors and subsequently dragged under train at West Wickham station (03/2016)
• Passenger dragged and fell between train and platform at Clapham South station (04/2016)
• Passenger trapped in train doors and subsequently dragged along platform at Hayes & Harlington station on 25/07/2015 (ongoing).
‘These serious accidents highlight some of the key issues involving the PTI. They all involved passengers being trapped in train doors and subsequently dragged along the platform; and on two occasions this resulted in those concerned falling beneath the train.
‘One of the accidents (at West Wickham station) resulted in a passenger receiving life-changing injuries. Key areas of concern following recent investigations into accidents at the PTI include:
• Following testing by RAIB, it has been discovered that some types of trains have door control systems that do not disable the opening of doors by passengers after the driver has initiated the closure sequence, so creating a risk of trapping (West Wickham, 03/2016).
• There is a widespread misunderstanding about the sensitivity of train door control systems to the presence of trapped objects and this has led some staff to conclude that the presence of objects such as hands between the leaves of closed doors will always be detected. Since this is not the case for the majority of train door control systems, it is important for the industry to explain the importance of always carrying out checks after the doors are detected as closed (Hayes & Harlington, 25/07/2015 (ongoing)).
‘A number of recent investigations into accidents at the PTI suggest that there is a need for the industry to understand how passengers interact with door systems. In particular to what extent is passengers’ behaviour affected by the belief that train doors will behave like lift doors (ie they will reopen if obstructed).’
