News in brief...
Samaritans urges commuters to help them answer calls More than five million calls are made to Samaritans annually and the charity urgently needs to raise funds to allow its volunteers to answer every single call made to its helpline. To that end, it has launched a campaign on the rail network calling for commuters to make a £3 donation. The six week campaign A missed call is no big deal unless it’s to Samaritans will feature on First Capital Connect, South West Trains and London Overground. The campaign complements Samaritans’ existing partnership with Network Rail, which aims to reduce suicides on the railways through training and advertising initiatives. Samaritans’ executive director of Fundraising, Rachel Kirby Rider said: ‘Through this new campaign and our work with the rail industry we hope to continue to make a real difference to people going through a tough time. Last year we received a call for help every six seconds, showing the need for us to continue to be there is greater than ever. Samaritans is marking its 60th birthday on 2nd November, only with the public’s kind donations can we be here for another 60 years.’ Passengers can make the donation by texting SUPPORT to 70123.
National Rail Enquiries is 2nd fastest on Twitter NRE has been named by social analytics platform, Social Baker, as the second fastest responder to follower tweets worldwide, with on average a six minute response time to any messages and providing rail travel assistance and feedback around the clock. NRE currently has 135,000 Twitter followers,
and looks to further fortify its reputation as the leading travel and transport website in the UK through responding quickly and efficiently to follower tweets. Chris Scoggins, CEO of NRE said: ‘It’s vital that our customers have the information they need as efficiently as possible, especially on the go.’
TfL creates work for ex-Armed Forces Following a successful pilot scheme, Transport for London will be creating 30 paid work placements to help ex-Armed Forces members - who may be wounded, injured or sick - back into employment. TfL has been working with Armed Forces resettlement support groups and Remploy, and has identified that many of the personnel who are leaving the Services have useful skills that can be transferred to the transport sector. The six-month placements will see people
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railway stations across the country. Rail users aged over 70 are five times more likely to have an accident when travelling by train than the rest of the population. The majority of these accidents occur at stations and more than 66 per cent involve slips, trips and falls. With an ageing population and growing numbers of
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rail passengers, it is vital that action is taken to try and reduce the number of accidents affecting the elderly. To help the industry gain a better understanding of this issue and how it will be
affected by changing demographics, researchers from the Loughborough Design School are looking at current risk models used by the sector and how these can be future- proofed. Dr Patrick Waterson, who is leading the project, explained: ‘To be able to tackle this issue we first need to understand what is happening now and what is likely to happen in the future. We need to ensure that the current risk models are providing an accurate picture.’
The team will also be investigating how risks to elderly passengers can be designed
out of existing and future railway stations, for example through the introduction of non-slip flooring, better access to lifts and improved stair/escalator design. A key part of this area of the project will involve looking outside the sector to discover how other industries tackle the issue.
‘A good example of this is the cruise ship business,’ added Dr Waterson. ‘A large proportion of people who holiday on cruise ships are elderly, so we are interested to see how companies operating in this area design their ships to take into account the age of their travellers and what lessons we can learn for rail passengers.’ Another key element of the research will be speaking directly to older rail users to gain an insight into their experiences of station use. The research team will be setting up interviews and focus groups which they hope will shed further light on how stations can be improved to make them safer for the elderly. The project is being funded by Rail Research UK Association and RSSB. Anyone interested in
taking part in the interviews and focus groups should email Dr Waterson at
P.Waterson@lboro.ac.uk or call 01509 228478.
esearchers at Loughborough University are hoping to help reduce the number of accidents involving elderly passengers at
Common, instead of Euston, has received a cautious welcome from host borough Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) council, which says it would only welcome the move if it saves significant amounts of taxpayers’ money while still transforming one of London’s poorest areas. The council has recently consulted
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on a Vision for Old Oak which shows that 90,000 jobs and 19,000 new homes – in addition to new schools, open spaces, shops and leisure facilities – could be created in the area thanks to HS2, but is now seeking reassurances about the possible terminal idea. Cllr Nicholas Botterill, H&F council leader said: ‘Terminating HS2 at Old Oak Common would undoubtedly save money
n investigation into whether HS2 should start and terminate at Old Oak
and may have additional benefits for kick starting regeneration in the area but there may also be downsides that need to be explored. For example, direct road access would need to be improved dramatically.’ ‘We’ve always worked on the assumption that Old Oak would be the secondary London station and we need to look at the implications for road and local rail connections if many more people are set to use Old Oak. The station would also need to be double in size and all of this adds costs rather than reducing costs.’ Around half of working age adults
within 1.2miles of the station site are unemployed and some parts of the area - which includes a large amount of railway land, two waste recycling facilities, the Car Giant dealership and other light industrial uses - are in the bottom 1 per cent most deprived nationally.
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