LONDON UNDERGROUND


From February 2012, the ERUs in the trial became a joint function, managed by a partnership approach. The trial, currently operating out of Camden for 12 months, sees seven BTP officers and 35 Tube Lines engineers in five teams, working 24 hours a day to respond quickly to emergencies and incidents on the Underground and DLR (Docklands Light Railway).


Tube Lines provides the ERU service from four sites in total: Acton Town, Battersea, Stratford and Camden. The partnership decided to run a trial from one site to begin with; Camden was converted for use in February and is already demonstrating the potential value of the scheme.


Horton said: “In the first few months it became really apparent the difference it was making, in terms of response, certainly for BTP and the industry. We more than halved the response time, which was phenomenal. We are saving the industry a substantial amount of money per month because it gets the system up and running quicker.”


Shared objectives


As well as the obvious benefit of faster response times, the partners soon discovered the initiative was developing an entirely new approach to incidents and emergencies.


Horton explained: “A benefit we didn’t really anticipate was the cross-pollination of working practice. We developed quite a good understanding, which is driving through some different thinking between us and the industry: some organisational learning on both sides, which has further improved our response.”


transport objectives and the two needn’t be in opposition. You can achieve both objectives by working together. It’s important to understand each others’ objectives, a lot of them are complementary, and it’s just the approach you take to dealing with the problem that we’ve been able to modify.”


One BTP officer per team is funded by Tube Lines, which also provides the majority of the staff and maintains ownership of the vehicles, which are operated as if they are part of BTP’s fleet.


“The police element is that critical link between us and them,” Horton noted.


In terms of incidents, the frustration for the rail industry was that “they don’t get the benefit of the same exemptions that BTP gets when we respond”.


He added: “So it makes sense to say, ‘We’re responding anyway, we’re working closely with you when we get there: it’s madness to not have you as part of our response. We’re going anyway.”


When is an incident an emergency?


The management of response and deployment of the ERUs is through the BTP control room, to ensure incidents meet national criteria for an emergency before a vehicle is deployed.


Horton explained: “It gets referred by the relevant control room to ours, we grade the response as we do any other police emergency and if it is viewed as such and suitable for the ERU to go, it’s deployed as any other police vehicle. It’s quite a good process in terms of control and accountability – to make sure it’s genuine emergencies.”


Even if the incident does not fit national criteria for an emergency, the ERU is dispatched immediately without a blue light and sirens.


This method of working also adds benefit at incidents where both parties need each others’


“We’re responding anyway, we’re working closely with you when we get there: it’s madness to not have you as part of our response.”


TfL has always had a “very collaborative” relationship with the BTP, Holness said, and he added that the new initiative was an example of “thinking more creatively about how we can meet joint objectives by working together more effectively”.


This sharing of knowledge is extremely useful to both partners, he explained, as certain priorities actually overlap.


“They have policing objectives and we’ve got 42 | rail technology magazine Jun/Jul 12


knowledge and expertise. In the case of police response to cable theft for example, BTP cannot act without the specific rail knowledge concerning the type of cable that was taken and the impact it will have on the rest of the railway infrastructure.


Horton said: “It’s actually really frustrating – and this is where we’ve seen it [the initiative] really come into its own. We didn’t realise how much more effective it would make our response. The team can turn up, secure the site, and identify whether specialist support is required.”


“We always send them straight away, because they can always turn the blue light on when they’re down the road if necessary. It’s absolutely critical that we get there as quickly as possible,” Holness added.


Before the partnership, there were certain incidents that would be classed as emergencies for LU, but not for the BTP. Due to the trial and cross-pollination of railway understanding, the way response is managed has been reconsidered.


Horton gave the example of tunnel fires: “A fire in the tunnel before, BTP would have just noted for information. The Underground have a number of issues with fire, we would get told for information but then we resolve trains stopped [or] service suspension.”


Previously the BTP would only have been called in around 40 minutes after the initial incident, when it became evident that passengers were affected. But the type of incident and its consequences are well understood, meaning that now BTP can respond immediately when such information is reported.


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