Underground, overground, putting JESIP into action on the Elizabeth Line

The Elizabeth line looks, at first glance, like just another part of London’s rail network: a purple line on the map linking east and west. That works fine for the public but for first responders in the capital, it’s a new kind of risk and one they are training for, putting JESIP into action.

The design, capacity and operating pattern of what used to be known as Crossrail means that the way police, fire and ambulance services train and exercise for incidents had to evolve. I spoke to Jon Charles and Matt Tully to find out what this means in practice.

Matt is an incident response manager for the Elizabeth Line run by Transport for London, he previously served in both the Met and British Transport Police. He describes the problem of perception when it comes to first responders understanding what they are dealing with when it comes to incidents on the Elizabeth Line. These trains are a hybrid of a large network rail train and a London Underground ‘tube’ train and they are running every two or three minutes in the central section across the heart of the capital.

This hybrid nature drives very different risk calculations, says Matt. He contrasts holding a Victoria line train at King’s Cross, where “you’re probably only really delaying 800-1000 people,” with stopping an Elizabeth line train, where “you’re delaying 1,500 people, and it’s just our sheer capacity, our sheer volume.” He adds that if all trains were stopped at 9am on a Monday, “we’d have around about 36,000 people just stuck in steel tubes in tunnels under the ground, and there’s no other underground station will have that kind of capacity.”

This explanation gives a sense of the size of the capability and what first responders like London Fire Brigade are dealing with. They are training and exercising to understand the risk and the impact on Londoners and the economy of an interrupted service.

From the London Fire Brigade side, Jon brings a similarly long emergency services background, moving from policing into fire; he and Matt have known each other for a long time. He points out that for traditional locations like Bank station in the heart of the city of London, crews are familiar with dealing with that kind of incident. The Elizabeth line changes the scale of what’s required and so the training, can’t just be a re-run of existing underground exercises. It has to address what Jon calls “the logistics of that railway” and the reality of dealing with thousands of people suddenly detrained at peak times.

The Elizabeth line asks a different question: what happens when thousands of people must be moved from deep tunnels through complex, multi-level stations and onto streets and transport systems that may already be under pressure?

The answer, for both Matt and Jon, lies in a new style of joint exercising anchored in JESIP, and in making full use of the Tunnel and Underground Construction Academy (TUCA) at Ilford. Originally built so that engineers and maintainers could learn to construct and operate the railway, TUCA has become a shared laboratory for emergency response. It is a purpose-built training centre for both TfL staff and first responders to learn how to build, work and operate the Elizabeth line. Complete with a scaled one-car train, platform, tunnel and open sections, it can be configured for different scenarios.

For Jon, TUCA overcomes a long-standing limitation of major exercises. Real-station drills at places like Farringdon are invaluable, but rare and logistically heavy. By contrast, Jon says: “TUCA is a fantastic venue that allows me to kind of replicate and disseminate that kind of training out to more people more often.”

Crews can be exposed to realistic conditions with sound, smoke and heat. “We often get this kind of exercise-itis where we’re imagining for example we are operating in a huge high rise building but we can’t replicate that.” He goes on: “At TUCA it’s amazing how quickly our crews adapt to the exercise scenario, and lose themselves in it. It is so realistic.”

Adapting to a changing climate

Speaking to Jon and Matt at the tail-end of the five heatwave summer, I ask them about what kind of impact extreme temperatures have on the Elizabeth Line in terms of its operations but also with the training regime. What learning has come from the recent weeks that means the training has to adapt?

Matt responds by saying that in the central section of the Elizabeth Line, which is entirely underground, that the impact has been minimal thanks to air conditioned trains, but that delays in open sections can quickly back up. If trains are held and power is cut too widely, he explains: “our trains will start to eventually load shed and battery will die, and that means air conditioning will then stop working.” Once consequence of this is the increased risk of passengers self-evacuating from the trains and the knock on effect of that in terms of safety and disruption.

Jon says that the first instinct of the incident commander is to cut or isolate the power so that crews can work safely. “In 35, 40 degree heat, with stalled trains every two minutes running through the central operating section, it’s only a matter of time before that power off is going to have a massive implication on passenger and crew well being,” he explains.

Since working with Matt and the team from the Elizabeth Line, they have now worked out alternatives that mean they don’t have to cut the power completely to operate safely. It is learning like this that is starting to have a big impact on how first responders deal with incidents, giving them the knowledge and confidence to make these decisions.

JESIP in action

Both Matt and Jon see JESIP as the constant thread running through their training. “It’s all about communicating and having a shared understanding,” says Jon. “The more paramedics and police officers that I can put on a smoke-filled train, so they know what our side of it’s like, the more we can develop joint understanding of the risk and how we can safety operate together.”

Matt makes a good point when it comes to JESIP: being at the table when it comes to training and exercising means that they can explain the impact of delay and add that into the plans for responding. He says he tells them: “So, you’re going to delay our trains, but just let you know, if you delay this train for this amount of time, this is going to be a problem.” And that problem is, as we learn in this conversation, not just about time and safety but the knock on effect on the economy of the capital itself.

It is great to see such a strong working relationship between Jon and Matt. The benefits of training in a purpose built realistic facility means that not just firefighters but other first responders can be exposed to what it’s like to respond to incidents on the capital’s newest railway line.

You can hear more from Jon and Matt as they join us at The Emergency Services Show on the People & Skills stage. They kick off our two-day programme at 1000 on 16 September. Register to attend here.