Arriva blog: MD UK Trains on protecting colleagues and passengers and helping the country’s recovery.

We have seen just how much of a lifeline it has been for our communities, for the vulnerable in need of food and medicine, and to all our key workers helping in the fight against the coronavirus.  The way public transport operators have responded to the challenge has been nothing less than extraordinary.

Now, after about two months of running a reduced timetable, we have started the more challenging task of reinstating services to align with the government’s gradual easing of the lockdown. As an industry, we have worked collaboratively with our people, Trade Union colleagues and the government, to ensure we can increase our service levels safely for everyone. 

We are now running a far greater proportion of the timetable, with plans to increase further over the coming days and weeks. However, the current social distancing policy means that the services we do run can only operate at between 10-20 per cent of normal capacity, depending on the nature of the rolling stock.  This is the theoretical maximum at which we can operate services to enable people to physically distance at two metres. 

For the capacity constrained service to work successfully however, demand needs to be carefully managed against the available capacity. Part of that lies in ensuring that a clear message about people continuing to work from home where possible is consistently reinforced by businesses and government.  Based on the number of passengers using our services to date we can see that this message has been working.

For our part, we are doing everything possible to provide safe journeys for our passengers and rail employees. Every single touch point at stations and on-board our trains have been meticulously risk assessed and measures put in place to enable social distancing on the network.  Go to a station or hop on any train and you will see two metre markings on floors or hear regular tannoy announcements being made to remind passengers to physically distance.  We’re encouraging seat reservations on long distance services wherever possible and continuing our enhanced cleaning regime.

But, when the time is right and safe to do so, a fuller reopening of the economy will require greater numbers of people to use rail.

It is vital that rail capacity does not become a brake on this and so we will need to think about how we continue to manage demand as well as how we can increase capacity safely and sustainably for both employees and passengers.  To put the challenge into perspective, average loading on our Chiltern Railway services arriving into Marylebone on a weekday morning are 92%, compared to the current c.5% levels being seen currently. At the right time therefore, physical distancing and the wearing of face coverings on trains will need to be re-considered.

If we look across to mainland Europe, we can see how other governments are grappling with this challenge.  In France and Spain for example, the wearing of face coverings in public and on public transport is now mandatory. In others, including Austria, physical distancing is now at one metre with an understanding that where this is not possible on public transport, this can be deviated from as necessary, but with passengers continuing to wear masks.

There are no simple, one size fits all solutions, but we will need to find a safe solution that works in a UK context.  Whatever the solution, what is clear is that we will need to shift the focus of our conversation about how to continue maintaining high levels of public health and run fuller trains as part of the plan for economic recovery.

It will also be critical to factor in public attitudes to personal health and safety.  It is understandable that people may have fears about sharing public spaces with others. A recent study undertaken by Transport Focus revealed that four out of ten people say they won’t use public transport again until they feel safe, but an increasing number however support the wearing of face coverings on rail.

If we are going to play our role in supporting the re-opening of the economy we will need to work collectively as an industry and alongside government to look at how we can restore passenger confidence and do everything we can to encourage their return to public transport. That will be as much about implementing prudent measures that make people and rail employees feel safer as it will be about following the science.

There is a lot of uncertainty in the world and we simply don’t know what the duration of this pandemic will be.  But throughout, we, as Arriva and as an industry, will continue to prioritise passenger and employee safety and work with government to find solutions that protect colleagues and passengers whilst doing our bit for the country’s recovery.

This blog was written for, and published by railbusinessdaily.