Dear Mr Martin,Thank you for your recent correspondence, which was passed to this office by Merseytravel.
I was most concerned to learn of the incident that occurred, when you travelled on our Kirkby line, on the evening of October 7th.
The safety and well being of our customers is our prime concern, and I can assure you that we take matters such as this very seriously.
While this kind of incident is uncommon on our network, I can only agree with you that customers should be able to travel safely and in comfort on whatever form of public transport they choose to use at any time of the day. Unfortunately, this kind of antisocial behaviour is a sad reflection of the kind of problems experienced more generally across society.
Our aim is to make Merseyrail a safe and comfortable network on which to travel, and we have already committed ourselves to introducing a number of initiatives to achieve this goal.
We will be working more closely in the future, with the British Transport Police and Carlisle Facilities (formerly MASS securities) to provide better coverage on those parts of our network that need an increased security presence and to improve response times to incidents. The British Transport Police will also be issuing Anti-social Behaviour Orders to ban persistent offenders from the network.
It is widely accepted that some of the antisocial behaviour on our network is related to the consumption of alcohol, and the subsequent activities of those under the influence. In an attempt to address this issue, a pilot exercise was undertaken involving the BTP, our Revenue Protection Team and Carlisle Facilities.
This initiative provided a much increased presence in the city centre and on trains on the underground. Any person who was found committing an anti-social act, was prevented from travelling or was ejected from the network. We hope to repeat this exercise at regular intervals in the future.
With the help of the BTP, we have also set up a special constable scheme. This has proved to be very successful in other parts of the country and will greatly enhance police presence in situations where there is increased usage of our trains.
We are determined that these initiatives will prevent the kind of behviour to which you were subjected that evening, and in doing so, provide a safter enviroment on our trains and stations. These improvements will not happen overnight, but I sincerely hope that in the coming months you will begin to see the benefits of some of these initiatives taking effect.
Thank you for brining this matter to our attention, and please accept our sincere apologies for any upset caused.
Yours sincerely,
Debbie Hunter
Customer Relations
