As part of Rail Safety Week, the NSW government has launched a new safety campaign aimed at lessening the rate of incidents on the state’s public transport network.
The “Do Your Bit for a Safer Trip” campaign was launched on Monday by state transport minister Andrew Constance, who said that it was an effort to urge passengers “to look at how they can make an everyday journey safer for both themselves, and those around them”.
Approximately 12 million individual journeys take place on the state’s train, buses, light rail, and ferries each week. Constance said that while the majority of these are completed safely, there was a great deal of work to be done in improving current figures.
“[L]ast year alone there were more than 5,000 safety related incidents across the transport network,” Constance said.
“Over 2,000 customers fell on public transport last year by rushing and falling over, as well as being distracted by their mobile phones and not looking where they were going.”
As part of the awareness campaign, the government has released video footage of some recent transport mishaps, including a particularly terrifying case in which a baby’s pram rolled on to the tracks after the mother momentarily let it go to retrieve her other child stuck in the lift. The footage shows the mother and several others rushing on to the tracks to rescue the pram.
Also shown in the footage is a man crossing tram tracks right in front of a tram just as it is pulling out from a stop, a man stumbling down platform stairs while attempting to wheel two large suitcases, and a woman slipping over on a platform while running to the train.
The new campaign asks passengers to “play their part” by watching their step and avoiding rushing and running when boarding or disembarking from transport services.
Moreover, it attempts to make people more aware of safety risks that are due to distraction from device usage.
““Train stations, light rail platforms, bus stops and ferry wharves are all busy places so it is crucial that customers look up from their mobile phones and pay attention to what is going on around them.”
The campaign is to roll out on the state’s trains, buses, ferries and light rail later this week.