Sally Ralston

Said the following about Merseyrail Safety Team:

“During 2014 and 2015 the Safety Team has seen several changes in leadership with a period of time without a Director. The team has continued to ensure that the business is supported with regard to safety. Every member of the team has increased the visibility of the safety function to both our passengers and the rest of the business.

They have organised and prepared several customer engagement roadshows on the network to tackle safety issues. These have been aimed at Travelsafe initiatives such as the safe way to use our escalators, lifts and automatic ticket gates. In tandem with these roadshows they have been working with Network Rail on supporting their Helping Hand Campaign. This campaign is to encourage passengers to consider their behaviour and the safety of those around them.

The Safety Team and the Samaritans have worked together throughout 2015 to engage with our customers to raise awareness regarding the support services that are available should they need them. They organised a series of roadshows at key locations and gave out special wallets to customers which contained their contact details. With an increasing number of young people suffering mental health problems, they are keen to continue to support this work and the Samaritans. This has been further endorsed by the organisation of Samaritan backed training for all our customer service staff. In addition to this the team have been working with CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, which exists to prevent male suicide in the UK. They are also hoping to work with other mental health charities and hold further events in the future.

The RSSB selected Merseyrail to trial Close Call, a brand new reporting system, where staff can report safety related near misses and issues. The aim of this is to help understand how the industry can improve safety on the rail network. The trial is focussing on the underground stations and Liverpool South Parkway. The team have worked closely with the Company Health & Safety representatives to determine how Close Call can be implemented effectively. This communication will continue throughout the trial to ensure its effectiveness. The staff involved have a designated phone number. Any issues captured will be given to the responsible manager to review and then feedback to the original member of staff. Feedback is essential and the team are actively encouraging the staff to feedback at every stage of the process. So far there has been an excellent response. It has reduced the amount of paperwork and staff like the proactive focus of the project.

Following a study by the team on customer behaviour in relation to escalators on the Merseyrail network the team worked on a project to install Virtual Assistants at key locations. These Virtual Assistants were originally designed to provide customers with information and have been used in different industries such as aviation and hospitals. We have now introduced them with a focus on safety related messages and since their introduction have been well received by passengers. They have had a positive impact on accidents and incidents and passengers behaviours. The team are able to vary how the VA appears, to help target key groups for safety messages. The team have asked the staff at Liverpool Central, where the first VA has been installed, to feedback to them regularly on the response to them, in order to make any necessary changes.

The team have also been working closely with the Corporate Social Responsibility and Operations teams on the introduction of School Safety Awareness visits to our stations. On 22 and 23 June they hosted two groups of Year 6 students from Kensington Primary School on an underground awareness visit at Liverpool Central. The children were all kitted out in Hi Vis and lanyards and were escorted around the station and on the train to Hamilton Square and Moorfields. The teachers at the school had contacted them to organise the visit to help them prepare their students for using underground stations, escalators and safely using our services. Our intention is to expand this approach to other schools and use this visit as a model to promote this new initiative.

All of the Safety Team have contributed to the content and progression of the 2015 safety plan and have taken ownership of the actions along with the functional managers of the business. It has been a busy year so far and they continue to look for new ways to engage with our staff and passengers to make improvements across the business where required. In terms of professionalism they are a credit to Merseyrail as throughout all the high level management changes in the business they have remained passionate and committed to making Merseyrail a safer place for both staff and passengers.“