Can real-time detection and site inspections help to reduce railway trespass?

Trespassing on railway tracks has always been, and to some extent always will be, an issue for train operating companies, British Transport Police and Network Rail. Recent data from British Transport Police and Network Rail shows a five-year high in trespassing incidents in 2020, with September seeing 1,239 incidents reported – the worst month over that period. Furthermore, trespass costs the railway network £50m every year, with the overall cost to the UK economy standing at £800m per year. What can TOCs and Network Rail do to address the situation?

Network Rail and British Transport Police have really ramped up awareness of the dangers of trespassing over the past couple of years, with social media campaigns targeted at a younger audience which have included aspects such as football club Twitter accounts promoting awareness of the issue in order to help reach a younger audience. Increases in trespassing incidents usually coincide with school holidays, so reaching school children with the messaging has been the main priority.

It’s not just children, however, who are trespassing on the lines. Trespassing on the tracks became a national story in October when a couple in Whitby were caught having their wedding photos taken on railway tracks.

The cost of trespassing to the rail industry is vast, running into the hundreds of millions of pounds every year. Where trespassers are spotted, trains must stop or run at reduced speeds, causing knock-on effects to the smooth running of the network. Then there’s the cost to the public of any police enforcement that requires conducting to end incidents. This can then result in the added cost of administering fines and court appearances and, in some severe cases, jail terms.

A Data Driven Approach

There’s only so much TOCs, Network Rail and British Transport Police can do to stop trespassing. Data suggests that their social media campaigns have had a largely positive impact, with incidents involving children decreasing. British Transport Police report that taking a short cut is the primary motivation for trespass, followed by thrill seeking. Such temptations will always remain.

CACI can help. Utilising Internet of Things (IoT), sensors and smart video cameras mounted inside the train’s driving cabs, CACI‘s real-time trespass solution is capable of capturing foreign objects on the rail network and enabling real-time video playback of an incident to Operational Control Centres. This enables TOC staff to quickly assess the problem and alert Network Rail and British Transport Police to rapidly deploy staff to site.

Not only does this help to pinpoint the location of a live incident, and help to reduce the impact and the delays each incident causes, but it also provides intelligence on trespass locations to help determine trespass hotspots across the network.

Regular inspections of these hotspots can make a difference, but it’s impossible to police every inch of the railway network. This is where data gathering enables efficient targeting of hot spots in the battle to reduce incidents.

With key areas identified, it then makes the task of trying to decrease trespassing incidents a bit easier. Using a robust data framework, sites can be inspected regularly to ensure that everything is in place to deter trespassers, from ensuring that trackside fencing is repaired to putting up clear signage that highlights the dangers of trespassing.

Inspectors can be scheduled to ensure that sites are visited on a regular basis, with the inspectors using real-time reporting mechanisms to report back with any defects they spot onsite immediately. This can then automatically trigger a workflow to ensure that appropriate remedial work is scheduled and conducted in a timely fashion.

By automating sections of the administrative process involved in scheduling, recording and actioning work, it saves rail companies time in carrying out inspections and ensures that they are conducted with appropriate regularity. This gives you peace of mind that hotspots are being regularly checked, in real time, and that appropriate signage is in place to help prevent and deter trespassing at identified hot spots.

A Safer Rail Network

Such technology can be used beyond trespassing, too, to ensure that appropriate safety precautions, such as up to date signage, are in place across the rail network, both onboard and outside train carriages, to help reduce the number of incidents. With real-time information being recorded by inspectors out in the field, follow-up work can also be auto scheduled to ensure that the right steps have been taken and that no jobs get missed.

This frees up the time of administrators to work on identifying areas for improvement across the network, helping to run a safer rail network.

Find out how Cygnum can support your scheduling, inspections, data recording and workforce management.

Find out how Radar can help you gather real-time information on the status of your network.