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The employer funded Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) has admitted that disabled passengers who require assistance are disadvantaged by Driver Only (DOO) Trains and that extending DOO will further disadvantage passengers.
The report admits:
“Assistance for disabled access to trains is typically provided by platform staff, or by the guard at unstaffed stations. With DOO(P) in operation, assisted access requires a member of platform staff to be available to help the passenger… if no staff are present the passenger may be forced to travel to an alternative station and arrange onward travel from there.”
The report adds that extending DOO would mean disabled passengers would:
“…face greater requirements to book in advance, possibly facing additional travel restrictions, which would represent a move away from the current goal of making the railway more accessible for all.”
 Additionally, a Parliamentary motion tabled by MPs has warned that:
“…train guards currently provide a safety critical role, which gives a guarantee of a second person on a train to provide assistance to passengers who require it…proposal to remove a second safety critical member of staff on Southern Rail services would be detrimental to access especially at unstaffed stations; calls on the Government and Southern Rail to ensure passengers retain this guarantee at all times; and further calls on the Government to undertake an equality impact assessment of DOO, if it has not yet done so, and to publish this and any other relevant work it has carried out.”
Mick Cash, RMT General Secretary, said:
“The bosses own standards body admits that disabled passengers will be disadvantaged with Driver Only Operation.
“This goes to the heart of the argument about the guarantee that Southern won’t give, that disabled passengers will face severe difficulties travelling, especially if they need to use unstaffed stations.
“The fact that Southern want to plough ahead with their plans to remove Guards from trains shows that their actions are purely motivated by profit.”
Source: RMT
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