The pros and cons of Driver Only Operation

That role doesn’t necessarily entail the second member of staff going out on the track and laying detonators, in the way that it might have been done in the past, but it remains an important one.

ASLEF’s view is that the driver’s domain should be strictly the cab, and nowhere else on the train. Says McDonald: “The view is that there’s an awful lot going on in the cab these days. And it’s a safety consideration that there’s a second person on the train.”

Experienced drivers bear out this safety concern. Without seeking either a positive or a negative view, RAIL asked drivers to anonymously express their feelings about DOO. 

One speculated on what might happen if a driver was killed or incapacitated on a busy main line service, perhaps by an object coming through the windscreen and impaling him before he has the chance to hit the all-important emergency red button in the cab.

While the train would come to a halt following the automatic intervention of the Driver’s Safety Device, the train might sit stationary, packed full of hot and angry passengers receiving no information as to why the train had stopped. 

“It won’t take long before somebody pulls an emergency door release and people spill out onto the track, only to be mown down by passing trains that haven’t been alerted because all the signaller has deduced is that a service has been a long time in section,” said our correspondent.

Such a scenario is not perhaps wild speculation, given that train drivers are only human and just as susceptible to sudden ill health as everyone else. And things can go wrong in the cab, in remote spots away from any other human contact. 

McDonald recalls a recent incident involving a freight train driver: “He went into one signal section between two towns, but never came out the other end.”

Found slumped alone over the controls in his cab, it took 40 minutes for paramedics to arrive: “There was nobody to assist him on the train.”

The story of the freight driver, who sadly died, raises the question of what might happen on a DOO passenger train in that situation. Bar the absence of a locked unglazed partition between driver and passengers, who would know if the driver genuinely needs urgent medical help, or has merely been stopped at a red signal for a particularly long time without an announcement, leaving passengers none the wiser and potentially at serious risk?

Some people working in the rail industry believe DOO has become widespread simply because it is pure chance that there have been no major accidents in which DOO has been cited as a factor. 

Indeed, Britain’s railway currently has the proud record of being the safest in Europe, with no accidental passenger fatalities involving a train crash since 2007, although there is plenty of evidence that post-Hatfield, the overall industry culture has put safety first and foremost, thus greatly reducing the possibility of any sort of accident.

“We haven’t been shocked by a DOO-exacerbated accident. We are giving it too much of an easy ride when weighing up its pros and cons,” says a driver who works both under DOO and with a guard.

Then there are technical and financial considerations - for the train operators and Network Rail, introducing DOO is not merely a matter of removing the guard. 

There is a cost involved when taking control away from the driver and fitting guard-operated controls to open and close doors, particularly in older BR-built stock (as Northern Rail found out when it took on a fleet of Class 319 EMUs from Thameslink). Likewise, there is a cost in reversing that process and putting the responsibility in the hands of the driver.

As a pre-requisite, cab secure radio is also legally required. And where DOO trains operate at stations in and around London in particular, a series of mirrors and monitors are necessary to ensure that the driver has sufficient vision of the longest trains to ensure no passenger is trapped in the doors - broadly the ‘Platform Train Interface’ (the new term introduced by the Rail Safety and Standards Board and Network Rail).

From a broader economic perspective, McDonald feels that wider objectives are being lost - for example, in the north of England, where Chancellor George Osborne is attempting to create his Northern Powerhouse. 

“To cut jobs on the railway is cutting, rather than investing,” says McDonald, who points out DOO would lead to more people unemployed in an area already with historically high levels of unemployment. 

That seems obvious, unless the grand schemes of the Northern Powerhouse are expected to transfer jobs away from the railway and into other industries. 

McDonald adds: “To get Northern trains to the standard of DOO would cost a fortune.” 

RAIL’s industry source supports that view: “On low density routes, the infrastructure investment is needed. If you have somebody in the train, the business case for cab secure radio tends to disappear.”

But he nevertheless supports the DfT view that DOO should be extended, saying: “There are a number of Northern routes that could support DOO.”

The Department is hoping for a target of around 50%, and although it’s not clear which routes it has in mind, it may be that any new trains ordered by the next franchise holder are equipped this technical capability from the outset.

Any case for DOO could be undermined further by other industry trends, such as the growth in demand for assisted travel. In other words, even if the driver is able to command the safe operation of the train as far as able-bodied passengers are concerned, those requiring extra help - such as needing a ramp for a wheelchair - would require station staff to be present. A driver can hardly be expected to leave the cab to undertake such tasks.

With passenger numbers continuing to rise, there can be no doubt that demands on rail staff will increase, if the railway is not to become a vastly more de-staffed and de-humanised environment. 

If that trend continues, even in these times of tight budgets and lower public subsidy, might extending DOO further create more problems than it solves? 

• This feature was published in RAIL 777 on June 24 2015