Railways: Safety

(asked on 3rd June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect of proposed changes to the number of rail guards on trains on passenger safety.


Answered by
Andrew Jones Portrait
Andrew Jones
This question was answered on 10th June 2019

Whilst decisions on staffing are for individual operators, the Government has been clear that it wants to see more staff on our railway not fewer. The Government is not aware of any plans by franchised operators to reduce the number of guards rostered on train services, and it welcomes the commitments made by Northern and South Western that a guard will continue to be rostered on every train after the introduction of Driver Controlled Operation (DCO).

The ORR, the independent rail regulator, and the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) have found that DCO is safe. In addition, an RSSB report concluded that the introduction of DCO according to the standard safety management requirements that all rail companies routinely meet does not increase any other passenger safety risks and, furthermore, that cancelling a DCO train in the absence of its guard is more risky than running it with only its driver.

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