Britain's listening railway reassures its customers on security

c2c Rail (part of the National Express Group), Britain's most punctual railway, today launched an initiative to reassure its passengers about their personal security when using its services.

Mark Hopwood, Managing Director of c2c, was joined by Chief Constable Ian Johnston of the British Transport Police at Fenchurch Street where they explained to customers the steps already taken, and those planned, to make customers feel safer on c2c.

This programme extends an initiative already successfully introduced on National Express's West Midlands Travel bus routes, and emphasises the partnership between c2c and the British Transport Police in their determination to deal with anti-social behaviour.

At the event c2c handed out leaflets entitled Securely Yours , giving information about what c2c has already achieved in the drive to improve security on its stations and trains. The work already carried out in partnership with the British Transport Police (BTP) is showing results as indicated in the latest report from the BTP covering the last quarter of 2006. Compared with the same quarter in 2005 incidents of reported crime fell from 344 to 281, while detection rates improved from 21.2% to 25.3%. The biggest reductions were in violence, vehicle related crime (Five c2c stations have the coveted Park Mark accreditation), public order and staff assaults.

Mark Hopwood was delighted with the trend, commenting, Today we are demonstrating to our customers, as we did over the timetable issue, that we are listening and acting. This is in response to a recent customer survey seeking reassurance of the steps we are taking to maintain and improve customer security.

Over the last 3 months c2c and the BTP have worked on a number of operations aimed at reducing ticketless travel and associated crime - research shows that most crime on stations and trains is committed by people without tickets. At Chafford Hundred station prior to and over Xmas 2006, 1302 fare evaders were intercepted over a 16 day period. Also the BTP carried out an operation at Barking station on Thursday 1 February 2007 when the mobile search arches were deployed on the station over bridge. 70 fare evaders were intercepted & 2 people arrested.

Mark Hopwood concluded, These are just two examples of recent activity which shows that we and our BTP partners really mean business when it comes to tackling any form of behaviour that seriously upsets or inconveniences our loyal and law abiding customers. These operations will continue as we make c2c not only the most punctual and the cheapest railway in the south east but also the safest.

Ray O'Toole, National Express's Chief Operating Officer, ''We are delighted that the Safer Travel Initiative is being rolled out from our bus division into rail. Within the bus industry significant results have been achieved, including a reduction in assaults on drivers, a drop in incidents of theft and increased arrests for anti-social behavior. We believe many of the principles are transferable to rail and look forward to sharing the benefits with our customers in c2c.

c2c's progress in making customers feel safe is further endorsed by the results of the latest (January's) Customer Satisfaction survey which indicates that the satisfaction rate for security at stations has increased by 4% and on trains by 6%.