Customer information during person under train incidents

[eldomtom2]

The research wasn't done by a few people in a railway forum. That being said, some of the research is 7-8 years old, and things may have changed.

Conversely, since this type of research necessarily lacks things like control groups, it can't be treated as an ironclad law...

 

[Krokodil]

Only evidence from Samaritans and those who do work with at risk people contemplating suicide suggest that use of "person struck by a train" identifies that as a viable method, attention is drawn towards it and it becomes a feedback loop.

Connecting it with suicide or even just mentioning that it was fatal could have that effect, but referring blandly to a "person hit by a train" shouldn't plant the idea of it being a viable method any more than any other phrasing. Not all PHBTs are fatal, and not all were attempted suicides.

 

[chuff chuff]

My wife several years ago was going through a really bad time and had made a plan of where she was going to commit suicide, it was one of the local stations based on two recent suicides there but most on one of the victims was seen to be sitting on the platform edge swinging their legs,she said it was because he was happy(at ending the pain).
She's still here and very much happier.

 

[Pakenhamtrain]

London Underground stopped using "person under a train" in public-facing announcements and publicity around a decade ago, and even before that for many years, the location was strictly not specified. Local staff retain their discretion to better describe the incident in face-to-face communications with customers.

It's how we describe it in Melbourne as well:

https://twitter.com/metrotrains/status/1652112280593784832

Some incidents(im guessing suicides) They will add the number for lifeline.

https://twitter.com/metrotrains/status/1620686297802358785

If someone is threatening self harm it gets put under the "police request" banner.

If you tell people why there’s a delay then people will understand. “Operational incident” sounds like a cop out. “Emergency services attending an incident” means people understand. They can infer the rest. If passengers know someone’s topped themselves then, funnily enough, passengers are more understanding of the delay. As much as anything, “person under a train” means several hours to clean up, go to the pub and try again later. “Operational incident” could be anything.

Operational incident here tends to be used as code for "Someone's dun goofed"

 

[BenW390Fan]

There was an incident yesterday at Newton Abbot and the XC twitter team put that straight out there with the specific location (https://twitter.com/CrossCountryUK/status/1653801985672355840) "Due to the emergency services dealing with an incident at Newton Abbot all lines are blocked." However GWR said 'near' Newton Abbot (https://twitter.com/GWRHelp/status/1653800764828004362) "Due to the emergency services dealing with an incident near Newton Abbot, the line is closed" and then tweeted the Samaritans link (https://twitter.com/GWRHelp/status/1653872311093583873) "We are sorry to those affected by the delays in the Newton Abbot area earlier today." unlike XC. Whether there is a standard rule on twitter reporting it's not straight forward

 

[185143]

I was on a train recently that was terminated short with very minimal notice allegedly due to a near miss earlier in the journey. Given it was over two hours from the incident to that decision being made, I'm somewhat sceptical of that being the entire truth. But the conductor did announce it as "due to an earlier near miss with a trespasser".

Are people of the opinion that "person hit by a train" and "near miss" should be announced in the same way, or differently?

 

[Neo9320]

There was an incident yesterday at Newton Abbot and the XC twitter team put that straight out there with the specific location (https://twitter.com/CrossCountryUK/status/1653801985672355840) however GWR said 'near' Newton Abbot (https://twitter.com/GWRHelp/status/1653800764828004362) and then tweeted the Samaritans link (https://twitter.com/GWRHelp/status/1653872311093583873) unlike XC. Whether there is a standard rule on twitter reporting it's not straight forward

I was at Taunton when this was announced.

Automated announcement said ‘emergency services dealing with an incident between Exeter st. David’s and Plymouth’ announcement from the platform dispatcher said ‘fatality in the Newton abbot area’

In all fairness to the dispatcher, he was advising people not to wait for London trains and just get on whatever turned up as there could be a significant delay.

I think it was handled as respectfully as possible but also with an aim of minimising disruption and delays to passengers, best outcome considering the circumstances.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Connecting it with suicide or even just mentioning that it was fatal could have that effect, but referring blandly to a "person hit by a train" shouldn't plant the idea of it being a viable method any more than any other phrasing. Not all PHBTs are fatal, and not all were attempted suicides.

Exactly. Saying person hit by a train makes people contemplate suicide on the railway really isn't very convincing for 2 reasons. Firstly, if it does then why are Samaritans posters plastered all over railway stations? I think most people associate the Samaritans with suicide so when they see stations covered in their posters surely that would also plant the idea that the railway is a good option for killing yourself. Secondly, a person hit by a train could just be a trespasser and surely the message don't trespass on the railway is one the rail companies want to get across.

Also looking at the number of suicides on the railway they are about 25% higher than 20 years ago so these changes to announcements, etc don't seem to having any positive effect.

UK: railway suicide fatalities in Great Britain 2023 | Statista

The number of railway fatalities caused by suicides or suspected suicides in Great Britain increased from 192 fatalities in 2017/18, to 279 fatalities in 2019/20.

www.statista.com

 

[TurbineEnginee]

Exactly. Saying person hit by a train makes people contemplate suicide on the railway really isn't very convincing for 2 reasons. Firstly, if it does then why are Samaritans posters plastered all over railway stations? I think most people associate the Samaritans with suicide so when they see stations covered in their posters surely that would also plant the idea that the railway is a good option for killing yourself. Secondly, a person hit by a train could just be a trespasser and surely the message don't trespass on the railway is one the rail companies want to get across.

Also looking at the number of suicides on the railway they are about 25% higher than 20 years ago so these changes to announcements, etc don't seem to having any positive effect.

UK: railway suicide fatalities in Great Britain 2023 | Statista

The number of railway fatalities caused by suicides or suspected suicides in Great Britain increased from 192 fatalities in 2017/18, to 279 fatalities in 2019/20.

www.statista.com

I just don’t see the purpose in all this hand wringing.

We simply don’t need to know what happened.

What we need is a reasonable estimate of what it means to us. The impact.

Given that we don’t actually need to know, it makes no sense in debating the impact of telling us. Just don’t.

 

[bramling]

I just don’t see the purpose in all this hand wringing.

We simply don’t need to know what happened.

What we need is a reasonable estimate of what it means to us. The impact.

The problem is it is very difficult to give that reasonable estimate, as there are so many factors which can affect how the incident goes.

Explaining to someone what has happened is an effective way of making that uncertainty clear without appearing to be flippant.

I don’t deal with the public much, but when I do I will always give a completely honest, and in many cases technical, explanation of what the problem is, and/or what is being done to deal with it. In by far the vast majority of cases this is very well received. I see absolutely no reason why these sorts of incident should be any different.

What gets backs up more than anything is giving an estimate which then turns out to be wrong. Hence why reasonable estimates aren’t a good idea. By furnishing then with all the information, people can make their own estimates if they so desire, but at least they can’t then claim they’ve been misled or lied to.

 

[railfan99]

Indeed. Hence they (rightly in my view) seem to have settled on “person struck by a train” rather than “operational incident”or variants thereof, which just sounds like BS. Personally I’d always err on the side of honesty - people are a lot more understanding once they know what has happened.

Agree.

In my state in Oz, in about 1970 when I was too young to understand it, an annual road toll was 1034. A major newspaper started a campaign, and the conservative government at the time was the first worldwide to introduce compulsory seat belt wearing and IIRC random blood alcohol testing. While there have been many other factors causing it to go up or (largely) down such as safer vehicles, today, it's typically not above 320 and mostly a fair bit lower.

You do not solve a problem by being silent.

The 's' word seems one of the last taboos in Western societies. Talking about it should help to lower, though as a 'Mick' I can't help but thinking a major reason it occurs is due to people not having faith in God, and unfortunately losing hope.

It's preferable authorities quickly respond and clear such unfortunate incidents. Japan does that quickly, though our Western social mores may not support such an approach. I believe UK is quicker than most states if not all in my country, and distance has little to do with it as the majority of such occurrences tend to be in built up areas in my nation where ambulances are typically located quite close.

It's vital that passengers know the expected time that trains will resume. TOCs and Network Rail ought have enough historical knowledge to be able to make accurate predictions, and they can also take into account factors such as traffic congestion that might slow a response down somewhat.

 

[Pakenhamtrain]

I’ve certainly found giving the actual reason helps deal with those disrupted, and for them to better gauge what they should do. Just telling people of an incident I find just sees follow up questions asking what it is anyway, how long it’ll take to resolve, “you lot are f-ing useless” etc. I’d almost go as far to say nondescript information winds regular passengers up.

I’ve found people generally react quite understandingly if you tell them what’s actually happened, as they realise/appreciate the severity of the situation and that it’s not just “another railway cock-up”. It also emphasises that the disruption is likely to go on for some time, where as a generic “incident” could be anything from 10 minutes to hours and makes it hard for people to judge whether to hang on or try and find another - possibly longer - route where available.

I find the more vague the information is the more pissed off people get. I do like Network Rail's twitter regions where they go into detail on what a a particular failure is, why it's and issue and what they're doing about it.

 

[Fleetmaster]

The 's' word seems one of the last taboos in Western societies. Talking about it should help to lower, though as a 'Mick' I can't help but thinking a major reason it occurs is due to people not having faith in God, and unfortunately losing hope.

Quite the reverse, surely, as in it was quite common to say someone had committed suicide. This has more recently led to a reexamination of the phrase due to its problematic and increasingly less relevant religious connotations. I confess I was ignorant until I started noticing the debates. You "commit suicide" because it was considered a crime to take you own life. A crime against God. Literally illegal until recently.

With increasing awareness of mental health, people nowadays naturally think that is all bunk, and are acutely sensitive to the wildly inappropriate sense of victim blaming it carries. This is why authorities are now proactively trying to avoid the phrase. Which is rather difficult given the lack of a suitable alternatives. "Took their own" life still carries some sense of implied shame, as if a theft against God. Any variant that suggests death was the result of some proactive choice, is problematic, but it's hard in the English language to separate outcome from intent, and often results in unintentionally suggesting it was some kind of accident.

 

[TreacleMiller]

Very circumstantial though, isn’t it, especially when seemingly the best “evidence” they can present relates to a German goalkeeper. I wouldn’t class that as “substantial”. Sounds a bit like the so-called evidence for masks being effective!

By contrast, it’s abundantly clear that if staff skirt around reasons for a substantial delay, this *will* substantially increase the likelihood of conflict.

That particular article doesn't match up with what's taught by Mental Health England.

As for the railway being dispassionate, I can say that's not true.

 

[12LDA28C]

What we need is a reasonable estimate of what it means to us. The impact.

Given that we don’t actually need to know, it makes no sense in debating the impact of telling us. Just don’t.

As others have said, it's not really possible to give even a rough idea of how long it might be before trains are on the move once again. Even the most 'straightforward' fatality could be 2 to 3 hours but then if there are suspicious circumstances and the area is declared a crime scene it can take a whole lot longer than that.

If more passengers had an understanding of this then perhaps they would be more patient. Nobody likes their journey to be disrupted but that's pretty insignificant compared to someone losing their life, or sustaining what could well be life-changing injuries.

 

[chuff chuff]

There is pressure at least in my singular experience to contact the BTP fatality hotline,as once it is classed as non suspicious the BTP get 90 mins to do what they need to do and get the line reopened.

 

[12LDA28C]

There is pressure at least in my singular experience to contact the BTP fatality hotline,as once it is classed as non suspicious the BTP get 90 mins to do what they need to do and get the line reopened.

Surely dependent on the circumstances it might take some time to decide if it's non-suspicious and it also might take some time for the BTP to arrive on site depending on location, time of day/night etc. It might also take considerably more than 90 minutes from the time they arrive for the line to be reopened.

 

[43066]

There is pressure at least in my singular experience to contact the BTP fatality hotline,as once it is classed as non suspicious the BTP get 90 mins to do what they need to do and get the line reopened.

Pressure upon whom?

 

[Horizon22]

Connecting it with suicide or even just mentioning that it was fatal could have that effect, but referring blandly to a "person hit by a train" shouldn't plant the idea of it being a viable method any more than any other phrasing. Not all PHBTs are fatal, and not all were attempted suicides.

Indeed. But the majority are (in both circumstances).

Pressure upon whom?

Not sure about pressure, but I am aware that drivers are requested to call them - they can offer specific and tailored advice which can support a driver who has just been through a traumatic experience and understandably might be in shock and not the right frame of mind.

The problem is it is very difficult to give that reasonable estimate, as there are so many factors which can affect how the incident goes.

Explaining to someone what has happened is an effective way of making that uncertainty clear without appearing to be flippant.

I don’t deal with the public much, but when I do I will always give a completely honest, and in many cases technical, explanation of what the problem is, and/or what is being done to deal with it. In by far the vast majority of cases this is very well received. I see absolutely no reason why these sorts of incident should be any different.

What gets backs up more than anything is giving an estimate which then turns out to be wrong. Hence why reasonable estimates aren’t a good idea. By furnishing then with all the information, people can make their own estimates if they so desire, but at least they can’t then claim they’ve been misled or lied to.

I think some people need to accept than an estimate is exactly that - an estimate. It is impossible to accurately predict exactly as there’s so many variables involved.

If people didn’t take it as gospel that would be good, but as soon as a time such as “15:00” is put out there, people make plans around it even if there is still some level
of disruption then.

 

[chuff chuff]

Pressure upon whom?

Upon myself from control who were very insistent in their request that I phone the hotline within minutes of the incident.
The BTP officer I spoke to was taken aback as he wasn't aware of one,happened about ten minutes ago.This insistence was while I was already talking to the local 'real' police face to face.

Surely dependent on the circumstances it might take some time to decide if it's non-suspicious and it also might take some time for the BTP to arrive on site depending on location, time of day/night etc. It might also take considerably more than 90 minutes from the time they arrive for the line to be reopened.

This is what I was told and the reason to phone the hotline was allow the BTP to assess the info from the driver as to whether it may be suspicious or not and then allow the tidying up to begin.

 

[Lockwood]

From another side of it, I was sent to an incident in 2016. Job came through as "person hit by a train" with an incident location of XYZ Railway Station.

Local rag had the story online the next day, maybe the day after, as a suicide at XYZ station with a Google Streetview image of the station frontage.

Passengers seemed to be fairly satisfied with information - we weren't being bombarded with "what's going on? I need to get home!" stuff, even while we were waiting in the car park for stuff to happen before we could leave. Can't remember how many railway staff were there to assist with that. I remember it took a while for a MOM to arrive - BTP had gone ahead but we were kept back until they got there.


I would disagree with rebranding as "member of the public did something" - a person could be hit by a train by a deliberate act on their own part, an act of violence, accidental slip near the platform edge, infrastructure failure, wheelchair/pushchair caught in wind from passing train... Not really fair to paint them all with the same brush - and all of those could be "a person hit by a train" or "emergency services dealing with an incident"



Sidenote, had a colleague sent to a "person hit by train" at another station. Busier time of day. They met at an RVP with BTP, MOM, RIO, I think an ambulance team leader as well... Went to the station in convoy. Found a patient with a minor head injury - got a sliding door to the head as they were boarding/alighting. While it was technically true that the person had been hit by part of the train, the job as described did not really match the situation and the response given was inappropriate for that! Would have probably still had some delays due to "emergency services dealing with an incident", as there were emergency services, there was an incident, and I think the incident train had been instructed to wait at the station.

 

[Re 4/4]

"Police incident" sounds too generic for my liking - it would seem to cover all of abandoned bags (sufficiently HOT that they're not just sent to left luggage), someone who threatened the guard/OBS when asked for their ticket, and a person hit by a train among many other things.

I agree it carries the connotation of "not the railway who messed up" though, unlike "operational incident" which could be a SPAD, missed call or wrong side door release among others.

 

[Archvile]

Treat people as adults and tell them the truth. It shuts them up and makes everybody's life easier. As far as contagion goes, everyone knows you can end your life under a train. Cruel world etc.

 

[railfan99]

Treat people as adults and tell them the truth. It shuts them up and makes everybody's life easier. As far as contagion goes, everyone knows you can end your life under a train.

Agree: worldwide, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

LNER (over 20 tweets mention person hit by train . Can't tell what the unique reach is as there are so many tweets. One below reached around 35k)
#LNERUpdate it is with great sadness that we report that a person has been hit by a train. All lines between #LondonKingsCross and #Peterborough are blocked. Train services running between these stations may be cancelled or delayed.

LNER have a really, really condescending and nasty way of trying to make people feel guilty in these circumstances. It goes without saying that the family of the deceased, and the deceased themselves, have lost far more than someone made late by the situation. BUT: that does not take away the right of someone (particularly someone who may not know the reason for the delays and indeed as we’re discussing TOCs don’t always make it clear) to be frustrated by the situation, and ask the Twitter things like how they can get home, can they go this way, why are trains late, etc.

Well, the amount of pious responses I’ve seen to perfectly reasonable tweets - particularly by a user named “Cameron” who from what I’ve seen who likes to be particularly vocal - things like “Well, we’re hoping to have the disruption cleared and you on your way home by 18:30 Luke, but just remember someone won’t be going home today.” Or “I appreciate your frustration, but someone has died and you asking when the line will open is not respectful.” No. This, in response to perfectly reasonable (if slightly irritated but not rude or disrespectful) tweets is very unnecessarily patronising and guilting, and I’ve only ever seen this from LNER’s Twitter. People should NOT feel guilted out of making the enquiries that the service is there for.

GWR, Avanti, SWR, SE and GTR seem swift and helpful. In my experience, GA, EMR and WMT just don’t bother responding either in these types of situations or normal day. Scotrail were just as bad a few years ago. Perhaps it’s an Abellio thing.

Treat people as adults and tell them the truth. It shuts them up and makes everybody's life easier. As far as contagion goes, everyone knows you can end your life under a train. Cruel world etc.

Agree: worldwide, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Couldn’t agree more. People are likely to be far more sympathetic too. To me, operational incident sounds like someone at planning or control getting their sums wrong, if you get what I mean. A mix up in the operations rooms.

 

[railfan99]

To me, operational incident sounds like someone at planning or control getting their sums wrong, if you get what I mean. A mix up in the operations rooms.

A detailed, informative post. I wouldn't have been mature enough at your age to post something as insightful and researched.

If it's indicative of your thirst for information gathering and knowledge, you should make an excellent journalist or other 'player' in a similar field as per your studies.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

A detailed, informative post. I wouldn't have been mature enough at your age to post something as insightful and researched.

If it's indicative of your thirst for information gathering and knowledge, you should make an excellent journalist or other 'player' in a similar field as per your studies.

Ohh, you flatter me, thank you

 

[AlterEgo]

Treat people as adults and tell them the truth. It shuts them up and makes everybody's life easier. As far as contagion goes, everyone knows you can end your life under a train. Cruel world etc.

So you just don’t believe any of the research done by professionals about contagion then?

 

[greyman42]

So you just don’t believe any of the research done by professionals about contagion then?

Personally, I don't take any notice of it.

 

[43066]

Personally, I don't take any notice of it.

Is that because you claim to know better, or because you just don’t care about what doesn’t affect you personally?