Two recent fatalities on the HS1 line necessitated a focus on the broader issue of railway trespass. Detailed analysis has revealed that approximately 33% of delay minutes since Period 3 2013/14 were attributable to trespass. In the months following the fatalities a number of procedural improvements have taken place yet the HS1 Leadership Team rightly requires that a more strategic approach be taken in order to reduce the impact of trespass to as low as is reasonably practicable.
HS1’s objective is to be “World Class” in terms of train performance and that should any trespass occur, that the delay is minimal and service resumption swift. Success will be quantified by reducing trespass and the impact of trespass to an absolute minimum.
Vertex Systems Engineering (Vertex) was requested to identify a range of potential interventions and defining strategic choices for consideration by HS1 Board, the project will evaluate hard and soft elements of Trespass Prevention including physical barriers, CCTV and control systems, safety and security standards, planning and performance, incident response procedures, behaviours, training and communications.
Vertex Engineers employed the following competencies during these works;
Vertex resources were centrally managed to ensure efficiency in deployment as required. This was to mitigate the risk of overuse of resource within the programme.
All resource that was deployed to the project were subject matter experts and fully conversant in the programme, this prevented any delays through learning requirements.