Mark Sutton

Said the following about Travel Safe, Travel Smart:

“Sanchez Virginie-Down is the SouthEastern Trains (SET) the Travel Safe, Travel Smart (TSTS) Manager

Nicola Dooris is the Network Rail Community Safety Manager Southeast Route

Sanchez and Nicola work in collaboration to manage, the first and only railway education and learning centre on railway ground opened in Margate station undertaking educational workshops for junior school children and youth clubs who book visits having been reached out to.

Sanchez started in January 2022 on a secondment position for 12 months to help take the TSTS project forward and provide a dedicated manager to support the dedicated NWR Manager Nicola Dooris.

The Travel Safe, Travel Smart Centre is a permanent feature. Within the centre there is real life platform and railway with a full height image of a train. This also becomes the viewing area for conducting safety talks and showing safety videos. There is a model railway donated by Hornby that shows several dangers that visitors have to find and discuss. Consequences, hazards, and electricity story boards are used to help visitors understand the impact of their behaviours. Outside there is a designated area for visits to take part in games that reinforce the railway safety message and help with their learning. The children can engage with resources provided by Travel Safe, Travel Smart, that help cement the learning, so they take it forward into adulthood.

The TSTS centre in Margate has seen over 1,000 children visit this year (2022) alone who all take part in the interactive workshops.

Sanchez and Nicola will also complete community events and complete schools and colleges visits to deliver whole school assemblies and classroom workshops focusing on the known reported issues for the nearby stations and education on how to be safe and behave while in and around the network.

Sanchez and Nicola will complete site visits to assess stations while school children are travelling, at times making life saving interventions due to trespass incidents

The team has set up ambassador programme to support work carried out by Nicola and himself, ambassador duties are additional for SET staff who need to be trained by Sanchez and Nicola and agree day release granted by SET departmental managers.

Between January 2022 to October 2022 there have been:

1,564 Safeguarding incidents reported to TSTS involving children.

110 schools engaged

49 schools attended between Sanchez and NWR Staff member

1,039 children have visited and taken part in interactive workshops at Margate

13,358 pupils educated.

Case Study

(Name removed Academy) – Local Station: Paddock Wood

Staff at the station were reporting that youths were being abusive and loitering at the station. At times they would bang on the side of approaching trains while they were still moving. Passengers reported that the youths were smoking on the station and preventing them accessing the lifts and walkways. In addition, there was numerous reports of vandalism caused by the youths in and around the station with fare evasion also frequently occurring.

3-month period Jan - Mar '22

Number of Incidents prior to engagement:

14 reports involving Academy students.

44 reports of youths causing issues at the station

Delay Minutes = 167 minutes

3-month period Apr - Jun '22

Number of Incident after engagement

3 reports involving Academy students = 77% Decrease

7 reports of youths causing issues at the station = 84% Decrease

Delay minutes 115 mins = 31% Decrease

There are numerous records and accounts of school children and youth groups causing problems on the railway, sometimes including extremely dangerous and unacceptable behaviour. In a perfect world, children (under 18) would respect the dangers the railway can pose and adhere to any safety instructions or signs. They would also respect fellow passengers and purchase tickets or make sure their parent/guardian has purchased one for them.

Until recently, there has been no formal process for visiting schools, social groups and other community groups to conduct safety talks or to address poor behaviour shown by individuals or groups, such as school students travelling to and from school. Traditionally, small groups of SouthEastern staff have tried to assist (with good intention) by arranging visits when organisations approached them. This would have included, a frontline member of SE staff, in their own time, arranging to attend a school to provide a talk and answer questions around safety and travelling on the railway. This ad hoc process was seen as risk to the business as there was no control over what is said, how it was presented and if the content was accurate, understandable and approved. There was also, no consistency in the message or any record that there has been a visit.

By having a designated staff that have control over the content and how message is presented, SET and NWR can be confident a consistent message is provided to schools and communities around travelling safely and behaving on the railway.

Who knows the number of young lives have that may have been saved by having these input by Sanchez and Nicola“