Accounting For All Passengers in an Emergency

[Y Ddraig Coch]

Following on from the shocking scenes of devastation in Scotland. I have a question.

How can you account for all passengers guaranteeing nobody is forgotten or left behind? On an aeroplane you know exactly how may boarded and this task is simple, the same on a ship.

On a train people board and alight at random, some have tickets , some don't, the guard would have an idea but cannot be 100% sure of numbers at any one time. Is there any way of giving a definitive number of people on board.

How could you be 100% in an emergency like this someone hasn't been thrown clear and not found? Or is it the search and rescuers job to ensure they find everyone by through searching and just doing the best they can to make sure everyone is found, but obviously this isn't guaranteed and fail safe.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You can't (any more than you could, for instance, count people out of a fire in a supermarket). It is necessary to carry out a detailed search to ensure nobody is left.

 

[pdeaves]

In current (COVID) circumstances, it is slightly easier. Some TOCs (can't say for ScotRail) carry out regular passenger counts and report back to control. Not 100% accurate at all times, of course, but some help.

 

[al78]

You can't (any more than you could, for instance, count people out of a fire in a supermarket). It is necessary to carry out a detailed search to ensure nobody is left.

Easier in a building than on a train I'd have thought. Can't guarentee everyone gets out swiftly, but in a building, there will be staff who evacuate the public, and some staff who act as fire marshalls to do a sweep of the building (as much as possible without compromising their own safety) to see if anyone is left behind. That minimises the chance of anyone being left in a burning building. That is why some buildings have annual fire drills and proceedures to follow if the alarm goes off.

 

[A Challenge]

In current (COVID) circumstances, it is slightly easier. Some TOCs (can't say for ScotRail) carry out regular passenger counts and report back to control. Not 100% accurate at all times, of course, but some help.

The problem here is that a one person difference either way (which won't matter much for the passenger counts) makes a big difference in an emergency situation.

 

[Ianno87]

On a lightly loaded train, could station CCTV be used? I.e. count the number of passengers observed to be getting on (minus those observed getting off)?

 

[Stigy]

As has been said, you can’t definitively really. Emergency services will search the area etc, but a lot of the time, concerned relatives will call incident lines etc which will aid in the search efforts.

 

[mmh]

It's a problem that does exist for water and air accidents too. How many people are on a Woolwich or Mersey ferry, a pleasure boat, a private plane...

 

[zuriblue]

It's a problem that does exist for water and air accidents too. How many people are on a Woolwich or Mersey ferry, a pleasure boat, a private plane...

On the Woolwich Ferry they count you on and count you off - you pass a guy with a hand clicker. Modern stock tends to have a passenger counter in the door, don't know about HSTs although they may have been fitted when the power doors were fitted.

 

[a_c_skinner]

Different for shipping since Herald of Free Enterprise sank.

 

[Horizon22]

On the Woolwich Ferry they count you on and count you off - you pass a guy with a hand clicker. Modern stock tends to have a passenger counter in the door, don't know about HSTs although they may have been fitted when the power doors were fitted.

Only very modern stock and it isn't universal. Other slightly less modern stock estimates loadings by measuring the weight of a carriage, but these are only rounded averages.

 

[skyhigh]

On the Woolwich Ferry they count you on and count you off - you pass a guy with a hand clicker. Modern stock tends to have a passenger counter in the door, don't know about HSTs although they may have been fitted when the power doors were fitted.

Only very modern stock and it isn't universal. Other slightly less modern stock estimates loadings by measuring the weight of a carriage, but these are only rounded averages.

And just because it's fitted doesn't mean it's any good - the passenger counters on new CAF stock are useless, whatever they show is way off 90% of the time. As a guard, I could give a rough estimate for passenger numbers but never a precise count.

 

[Ashley Hill]

A few years ago I took part in a training exercise organised by my TOC and the emergency services. During the "incident" the fire officer in charge was surprised I could not give him the exact number of passengers on board. Some had already self evacuated whilst protection was arranged and others had been moved to a place of safety before the emergency services arrived. TBH during an emergency incident accurately counting passengers would not be at the top of my to do list.

 

[thenorthern]

CCTV will be one thing seeing how many people are in the coaches and how many people got on and off at each station. Also many people travel in groups so they will know how many people are in their group. Also the authorities will ask the guard and other passengers if they saw anybody else on the train.

Finally there will be numbers for people to call if they are worried and if someone is missing an unaccounted for then that is a sign there may be more people to look for.

 

[Ashley Hill]

CCTV can only be a rough guide. On an IET one can look both ways in a coach and get two different answers. Walk through and count and you'll have a far higher number.

 

[USRailFan]

If it was a train with reserved seating the number of sold tickets would be an indicator. Of course these days when tickets are sold both online, in mobile form etc it might not be as easy as back in the day when you had to buy a physical ticket...

 

[PupCuff]

Station CCTV is generally good and clear enough these days to establish exact numbers, provided you have the patience to do it on a busy train, however the issues of course are not everywhere is fitted with CCTV and a train which has called at many stations en route already could have a large amount of footage to trawl through. Additionally, some TOCs are more... protective, of their CCTV than others which could lead to a delay in an investigator collecting footage in this manner.

Train CCTV is a bit of a mixed bag really, but to be honest chances are if the unit you were trying to find out passenger numbers via this method for had been involved in a rail accident you wouldn't be able to download the footage from the train due to equipment damage and so you'd have to physically obtain the hard drive, which may itself not have fared much better and is probably more difficult to locate than combing the wreckage for individuals.

 

[Bedpan]

I recall over the years guards/train managers coming through the train with one of those hand held clicky devices where the number advances when you push a button. Usually when travelling on an inter city train, it certainly wouldn't have given a true reading on a packed commuter train. I was going to say the same applied (re how can you be sure that all passengers are accounted for) to a bus. I remember from my insurance investigation days once dealing with an accident in Wales once where a bus driver had said he was carrying about 15 passengers but we received injury claims from about twice as many people as the bus's capacity.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If it was a train with reserved seating the number of sold tickets would be an indicator. Of course these days when tickets are sold both online, in mobile form etc it might not be as easy as back in the day when you had to buy a physical ticket...

Even with that, unless you had a very strict system of barrier checks at all stations at all times (including on the platform, so someone didn't board train X with a ticket for train Y), unlike an aircraft you'd still get chancers and fare dodgers. So you have to work on the assumption that you don't know, you just have a rough guess, and have to therefore complete a full search.

 

[Clarence Yard]

It's very now rare but historically not unknown for someone to be found (dead) when vehicle recovery is underway.

With walk on such a large part of rail usage in the isles, it would be very hard to account for everyone travelling by rail at any moment in time.

 

[LowLevel]

You do your best to keep a track (I write my numbers on my job card) but there is always a chance of missing people. Small children who move around a lot, fare evaders (they're annoying but I try to keep them safe as much as anybody else, they're still people) who try to avoid you etc. I count an engaged toilet as one person, it could be two or three (parents with kids, aforementioned scrotes). Ultimately all you can do is do a thorough check if you need to do so. On Driver Only trains nobody will know so you have to get into things like CCTV interrogation.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

On a lightly loaded train, could station CCTV be used? I.e. count the number of passengers observed to be getting on (minus those observed getting off)?

One of the news reports last night (yes, I know...) did mention that CCTV had been studied to establish how many were likely to have been on board.

 

[DB]

One of the news reports last night (yes, I know...) did mention that CCTV had been studied to establish how many were likely to have been on board.

It was very low numbers, and hadn't it only called at one station (the one where it started) before the derailment? In those circumstances they would have been able to check fairly quickly by looking at the station CCTV.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

It was very low numbers, and hadn't it only called at one station (the one where it started) before the derailment? In those circumstances they would have been able to check fairly quickly by looking at the station CCTV.

Two stations I think: Aberdeen and Stonehaven.

 

[peperami97]

BTP have also said that they used the CCTV to come up with the numbers.

 

[thenorthern]

As I say they will use a mixture of things. With September 11th one of the ways they worked out how many people would have likely of died in New York was based on how many people swiped their work pass at the turnstiles to go in and subtract how many went out that morning. Then with the Firefighters the fire department had a tally of firefighters that went in and out. Then there were the families who lost loved ones who phoned up which were matched against a database.

It's not an easy job but all those systems together gives a final number.

 

[Trackman]

Some TfL buses have independent APC (automatic passenger counters) and I think DLR has too. It must work on the DLR as someone told me that's how they can spot fare-evasion hot-spots. I dont know how accurate it is, but if you google about it they say it's precise.

You can't (any more than you could, for instance, count people out of a fire in a supermarket). It is necessary to carry out a detailed search to ensure nobody is left.

Yes, even if there was an accurate APC, they would still do a detailed search.

 

[mark-h]

Some TfL buses have independent APC (automatic passenger counters) and I think DLR has too. It must work on the DLR as someone told me that's how they can spot fare-evasion hot-spots. I dont know how accurate it is, but if you google about it they say it's precise.

I doubt these are totally accurate but will give an estimate of how many passengers are on board. As for the DLR use, they will be comparing the number of passengers boarding/alighting from the trains and the number of touch ins/outs. DLR passengers using paper tickets are not required/able to touch in so, even if no fare evasion is taking place, there will never be a 100% match between the two statistics.

 

[richw]

During the present time at unmanned stations With no machines and no ticketing Being done on board, some journeys have become a true free ride leaving no ticketing to give a rough idea of walk ins sold.

As a bus driver the operator I work for have developed with the ticket machine supplier a system that at any given point as long as I Input alightI got passengers correctly I always know the exact number on board!

 

[yorkie]

During the present time at unmanned stations With no machines and no ticketing Being done on board, some journeys have become a true free ride leaving no ticketing to give a rough idea of walk ins sold....

Ticketing isn't relevant at all.

Consider the huge number of tickets that would be valid on a particular service, with no requirement for a reservation. Consider also that many tickets are not only valid on multiple trains but over multiple days, such as Seasons, Rovers, Returns, Staff passes etc.