On 14 November RESTRAIL was presented at the Transport and Security Expo in London, a two-day conference, which is a major event for the Aviation, Maritime, and Public Transport industries, attended by more than 3000 delegates, including leading experts from the government, military, law enforcement and security services.
Brendan Ryan (University of Nottingham) attended the event and presented a paper on the current progress of the RESTRAIL project. The paper was part of a special session on safety and security in public transport and included a number of papers on railway suicide and fatalities, and the police and industry responses to these types of incidents.
The RESTRAIL paper included an overview of the different phases of work in the project and focused in particular on the on-going work by partners on pilot tests in seven countries in Europe. As an example of the evaluation activities within RESTRAIL, the work to evaluate the implementation of mid-platform fencing in the pilot test in Great Britain was explained.
The other papers in the special session on railway suicide and fatalities included presentations from rail organisations, transport police, academics and researchers. Ian Stevens (Programme Manager for Suicide Prevention, Network Rail) outlined the preventative work in Great Britain and the partnership working with the Samaritans. Chief Superintendent Miles Flood (the British Transport Police) explained the police investigation and incident management processes. Mark Smith (Head of Suicide Prevention and Mental Health, British Transport Police) reported on the number of suicides and attempted suicides in Great Britain and described the innovative working that is being tested in developing working relationships with local health agencies. Further presentations during the session covered the roles of transport police and civil police, analyses to forecast the likely locations of suicide incidents, and how to deal with the trauma arising from these types of incidents.
More details of the event are available at http://www.transec.com/page.cfm/link=291
Website: www.restrail.eu
