The Auditor-General for New South Wales, Margaret Crawford, has today released a report on how Transport for NSW and Sydney Trains manage crowding at selected metropolitan train stations.
The audit found that while Sydney Trains has identified platform crowding as a key strategic risk, it does not have an overarching strategy to manage crowding in the short to medium term. Sydney Trains ‘do not have sufficient oversight to know if crowding is being effectively managed’, the Auditor-General said.
Sydney Trains' operational response to crowding involves restricting customer access to platforms or station entries before crowding reaches unsafe levels or when it impacts on-time running. Assuming rail patronage increases, it is likely that Sydney Trains will restrict more customers from accessing platforms or station entries, causing customer delay. ‘Restricting customer access to platforms or station entries is not a sustainable approach to manage station crowding’, said the Auditor-General.
The Auditor-General made seven recommendations to improve Transport for NSW and Sydney Trains' management of station crowding. Transport for NSW have accepted these recommendations on behalf of the Transport cluster.
By December 2020, Sydney Trains should:
1. systematically collect information on the use of crowd management interventions at stations and assess the impact of these interventions
2. enhance existing procedures to require staff to make an assessment on whether crowding was a contributing factor in safety incidents and near-misses and code these incidents for crowding
3. develop a policy for customer management plans. The policy should include:
- a process for identifying stations requiring a customer management plan
- essential elements of a customer management plan
- requirements for the review and approval of customer management plans
- the requirement to centrally store all customer management plans.
By December 2020, Transport for NSW should:
4. evaluate Travel Choices to determine the overall impact the program has on distributing public transport use out of peak AM and PM periods and its impact on station crowding
5. evaluate the Wayfinding strategy to determine the impact of the program and to identify any lessons learnt for future wayfinding strategies.
By December 2020, Transport for NSW and Sydney Trains should:
6. develop a direct performance measure for station crowding and collect data to measure performance
7. work with the Airport Link Company to develop a more comprehensive crowd management strategy for Airport Link Stations that includes:
- a crowd management plan for each station, with clearly described roles and responsibilities
- a service level indicator or KPI relating to station crowding at Airport Link Stations.
(Source: New South Wales)