Training for effective passenger communication during ‘out-of-course’ incidents on London Underground had been removed from the syllabus, according to an investigation.
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) has published a report into an incident at Clapham Common, which resulted only in minor injuries but had the potential to have more serious consequences.
A rush-hour train departing from the station in May 2023 was brought to a halt by an emergency alarm after smoke and the smell of burning entered the train.
The train stopped with two carriages inside the tunnel and four beside the platform. Doors remained closed, but around 100 passengers evacuated, in some cases by breaking windows. Station staff only began opening the train’s doors nearly five minutes later.
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The RAIB’s investigation found that passengers perceived a fire risk and became increasingly alarmed when the doors remained closed and they did not receive suitable information or see any effective action from staff.
An underlying factor to the incident was that operational staff were not provided with the procedures or training needed to effectively identify and manage incidents where passenger behaviour can rapidly escalate.
It found that lessons from a similar incident at Holland Park in 2013 had not been learned and that staff training no longer included procedures on effective passenger communication.
The investigators found a disparity between London Underground’s rule book and training materials provided to new and existing Tube drivers, with the latter not including the requirement to inform the passengers on the train.
Andrew Hall, chief inspector of rail accidents said that out-of-course events can rapidly escalate into emergencies if not responded to promptly and effectively, and that staff did not fully appreciate the emerging safety risk.
“When passengers did not receive suitable information about the nature of the incident and the actions they should take, nor see action they would have expected to be taken, they turned to desperate measures to self-evacuate,” he said.
“RAIB investigated a similar incident at Holland Park in 2013 and for a number of years that incident was used as an example to train staff about how to respond to such out-of-course events. However, it was subsequently removed from the training syllabus and since then knowledge of the lessons learnt may well have begun to fade. This incident again demonstrates that learning from past operational incidents needs to be retained by organisations.”
The RAIB made recommendations for London Underground relating to procedures and training to ensure that staff have clear guidance on how to deal with out-of-course events, and to ensure that learning from previous incidents is not being lost.
London Underground’s director of customer operations Nick Dent said: “I would like to apologise again for the distress this incident caused to customers at Clapham Common and would like to reassure Londoners that we are continuing to do all we can to ensure the safety of everyone on the Tube.
“We welcome any opportunities to learn lessons from incidents on our network and, following our own investigation last year, we are already making good progress on the recommendations from the RAIB.”
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