London Underground Escalator Passenger Safety Strategy Improving Passenger Safety on Escalators

Safety, reliability and value for money are at the foundation of London Underground’s (LU) service. Although LU’s safety record is one of the best in the world it is important to guard against complacency and continue to strive for continuous improvement. Evaluation of company incident data has identified that the largest cause of customer injuries on London Underground is slips, trips and falls with 40% of all injuries reported occurring on escalators. A strategy group was set up, comprising all stakeholders across the business, to identify/shortlist and then trial ideas to improve passenger safety. Four key risk controlling measures were identified and from the list of ideas 12 were shortlisted for trial on more than 50 escalators at stations with historically high accident rates. The aim was to identify ideas that would positively impact passenger behaviour and in turn reduce the number of slips trips falls and entrapments. Four measures were used to evaluate the effectiveness of each initiative. Seven of the twelve ideas were found to be effective, following evaluation of the four measures. The next step is to roll out, in a targeted manner, selected initiatives to “Top 20” London Underground station assets where the highest number of accidents and incidents have occurred in previous years.