House of Commons Transport Committee
Cable theft on the railway
Fourteenth Report of Session 2010– 12
Volume II Additional written evidence
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published 24 January 2012
Published on 26 January 2012 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited
The Transport Committee
The Transport Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Department for Transport and its Associate Public Bodies.
Current membership Mrs Louise Ellman (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool Riverside) (Chair) Steve Baker (Conservative, Wycombe) Jim Dobbin (Labour/Co-operative, Heywood and Middleton) Mr Tom Harris (Labour, Glasgow South) Julie Hilling (Labour, Bolton West) Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative, Spelthorne) Mr John Leech (Liberal Democrat, Manchester Withington) Paul Maynard (Conservative, Blackpool North and Cleveleys) Iain Stewart (Conservative, Milton Keynes South) Graham Stringer (Labour, Blackley and Broughton) Julian Sturdy (Conservative, York Outer)
The following were also members of the committee during the Parliament.
Angie Bray (Conservative, Ealing Central and Acton) Lilian Greenwood (Labour, Nottingham South) Kelvin Hopkins (Labour, Luton North) Gavin Shuker (Labour/Co-operative, Luton South) Angela Smith (Labour, Penistone and Stocksbridge)
Powers The committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the internet via www.parliament.uk.
Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the internet at http://www.parliament.uk/transcom. A list of Reports of the Committee in the present Parliament is at the back of this volume.
The Reports of the Committee, the formal minutes relating to that report, oral evidence taken and some or all written evidence are available in a printed volume. Additional written evidence may be published on the internet only.
Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Mark Egan (Clerk), Jessica Montgomery (Second Clerk), David Davies (Committee Specialist), Tony Catinella (Senior Committee Assistant), Edward Faulkner (Committee Assistant), Stewart McIlvenna (Committee Support Assistant) and Hannah Pearce (Media Officer).
Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Transport Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6263; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]
List of additional written evidence
Page 1 Freight Transport Association Ev w1 2 First Great Western Ev w2 3 Virgin Trains Ev w3, Ev w4 4 Freightliner Group Ltd Ev w5 5 Nexus Ev w5 6 Northern Rail Ev w6 7 Metro Ev w7 8 Merseytravel Ev w9 9 Passenger Focus Ev w10 10 Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Ev w12 11 South West Trains Ev w18 12 Greater London Authority Ev w19 13 Office of Rail Regulation Ev w21
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Written evidence
Written evidence from the Freight Transport Association (CTR 01) The Freight Transport Association is one of Britain’s largest trade associations, and uniquely provides a voice for the whole of the UK’s logistics sector. Its role, on behalf of over 14,000 members, is to enhance the safety, efficiency and sustainability of freight movement across the supply chain, regardless of transport mode. FTA members operate over 200,000 goods vehicles—almost half the UK fleet—and some 1,000,000 liveried vans. In addition, they consign over 90% of the freight moved by rail and over 70% of sea and air freight. FTA works with its members to influence transport policy and decisions taken at local, national, European and global level to ensure they recognise the needs of industry’s supply chains. 1. For logistics operators, cable theft is a live issue and a costly one. Aside of the impact that these thefts have on passenger services, the impact on freight is considerable. This submission will look at the scale of the problem, how the logistics industry is having to move to counter the problem, and the impact on services of cable theft. 2. The delay caused to our member rail freight operators because of cable theft over the last year is approximately 114,000 delay minutes. That is 10.2% of delays which are attributable to Network Rail (excluding delays caused by other operators but including suicides). There has been an increase in cable thefts as the price of scrap copper has gone up. Most importantly this means a huge impact of delay and disruption to services used by our shipper members—the onward economic cost of that is harder to calculate. If rail freight is to play its full part in the supply chain, then those moving goods require confidence in their chosen method of moving goods. Delays caused by thefts make that certainty much more difficult for rail freight operators seeking to take goods off our congested roads. 3. Network Rail reports that cable theft has cost the railway as a whole £43 million in the last three years. This is at a time of economic austerity when investment is being made in the network to improve it for rail freight and make a rail a viable and economically sustainable mode in logistics supply chains. Therefore this haemorrhaging of cash due to cable theft (as well as the damage to rail’s reliability and service offering and image) is particularly galling. 4. Network Rail figures show the breakdown of cable theft incidents by route in 2010–2011 to be as follows: Route Incidents Delay Minutes Compensation Cost Anglia 74 21,055 £1,089,809 Channel Tunnel Rail Link 1 31 £7,251 East Midlands 33 11,234 £282,473 Kent 17 12,681 £417,950 London North Eastern 526 137,801 £3,531,416 London North Western 196 105,842 £2,795,811 Scotland 34 7,265 £254,825 Sussex 3 764 £30,081 Wessex 8 3,536 £140,423 Western 103 65,026 £3,587,181
5. British Transport Police’s breakdown of cable theft and arrests by force area is as follows: Area Cable Crimes Arrests London North 321 112 London South 391 94 London Underground 123 77 North Eastern 1,184 273 North Western 273 109 Wales and Western 632 218 Scottish 192 31 Total 3116 914
6. While railway signalling is designed to “fail to safety” in the event of damaged cables and lost power supplies, cable thieves are putting their own lives at risk (and there have been recent examples of fatality by thieves) and tampering with railway signalling is still a fundamental interference with safety of the line that could potentially have disastrous fatal results. 7. The railway industry, as with other industries that have suffered metal and theft issues such as construction plant, has invested in traceability technologies to protect its assets, such as the “smart water” forensic detection system first pioneered in the Cash—in -Transit sector. Better CCTV and lighting and fencing at rail infrastructure upgrade sites can be deployed but it is difficult to protect hundreds of miles of railway line. What is needed is a levelling of the playing field to make it harder for the metal thieves to trade. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:52] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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8. One further issue is the cashless Scrap Metal Trade. FTA is supporting calls for amendment to the Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964. Due to a significant rise in value, metal has become a much sought after commodity. This increased demand has resulted in a sharp rise in metal theft nationally. Theft of signalling cable on the railway causes delays to train services, including freight services with the number of delays having grown considerably over the last two years as the price of copper has increased.
9. Historically, the scrap metal trade has been a “cash in hand” industry. This creates difficulties as there is no audit trail, making identification of individuals who may be trading stolen metal or who may be committing tax or benefits fraud, a difficult proposition for criminal investigators. A petition on the Government’s ePetition website http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/406 is calling for an amendment to the Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964 to prohibit cash transactions which would make payment by cheque or directly into a bank account mandatory; the author of the petition asserts that the creation of such an audit trail would be a significant component in reducing metal theft. 27 October 2011
Written evidence from First Great Western (CTR 02)
The impact of cable theft on First Great Western’s business over the last three years shows a significant increase in incidents, with the length of delays and cancellations also worsening. Number of Incidents Delay Minutes Number of Cancellations 2009 61 4416 13 2010 88 18864 168 2011 (to date) 117 26871 381
The number of incidents this year looks set to double the level incurred in 2009. In the same period delay minutes have increased six fold, and cancellations are twenty nine times greater than they were just two years ago.
This is despite successful prosecutions and covert operations.
The affect of individual incidents can vary considerably. In March a cable theft at Moreton-in-Marsh caused a total of 81 minutes of delay, affecting 20 trains. A few days earlier a cable theft at Gloucester caused a total of 1443 minutes of delay with 22 trains cancelled and 130 delayed.
Nationally cable theft has cost the rail industry £43 million and 16,000 hours of passenger delays in the past three years.
The industry and BTP have done a great deal to tackle the problem, but with copper prices at an historic high the problem is likely to worsen.
We are therefore very supportive of suggestions made by Government for new or amended legislation and support the following measures: — A robust licensing regime (rather than the present registration) with clear requirements upon the dealer to take steps to reduce the risk that stolen materials are purchased or received. — Scrap metal dealers to pay a licence fee in order to give local authorities greater funds to facilitate the regulation of the licence. — Property obtained by virtue of breaches of the legislation should be regarded as criminal assets allowing Proceeds of Crime provisions to apply. — Police powers to close scrap metal dealers in line with alcohol licensing and police authority to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by a scrap metal dealer. — Restrict trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and introduce a requirement that scrap metal must be held for a certain period before being sold or processed in order to allow payments to be processed. — Searchable records to be kept of proof of identity of the seller of scrap and any vehicles used to transport it (eg through photo ID and CCTV). — Magistrate powers to add restrictions on to licences and to prevent re-opening of closed yards until conditions have been met. 27 October 2011 cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:52] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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Written evidence from Virgin Trains (CTR 03) About Virgin Trains 1. Virgin Trains has been running services on the InterCity West Coast route since 1997. Our fleets of 125 mph tilting trains now carry around 30 million passengers a year.
The impact of cable theft on our services 2. Cable theft affects key infrastructure on which we depend to run our trains: signalling and points. The disruption it causes is often significant. From January 2011 to 10 October 2011 cable theft caused 200 hours of delay to our trains. (To set this is context, 200 hours of delays represents around 4% of all delays to our trains.) In addition, 18 trains were cancelled and 40 could not operate over the entire journey planned for them. 3. We support Network Rail’s efforts to reduce levels of theft, for example by burying cables, use of covert CCTV, invisible marking of cables and use of trembler alarms. We are also fully behind the Association of Train Operating Companies and the British Transport Police in pressing for tougher sentences for offenders and tackling illegal practices among some scrap metal dealers.
The impact of cable theft on our customers Case study: Bushey, Hertfordshire, Friday 15 July 4. Damage to cables in the Bushey area first impacted on train services around 0600. Services resumed a normal timetable from 13:50. 5. The railway in the Bushey area consists of four tracks—two slow lines in each direction and two fast lines in each direction. The fast lines are generally used by Virgin Trains and the slow lines used by London Midland, Southern and freight services. The nature of this particular incident caused the closure of both slow lines leading to very limited capacity on the two fast lines.
Summary 6 Almost one in five of our trains were cancelled, part cancelled or delayed. 984 delay minutes were incurred by Virgin trains services. An estimated 50,000–55,000 passengers were affected either by delay or overcrowding.
Business trains From a customer complaint: “I accept that you cannot be held responsible for the mindless pilferage of overhead cables in Hertfordshire which necessitated the termination of my journey at Rugby and consequently for my delayed arrival at an important meeting in London…I would like to receive compensation for my delay.” 7. 29 trains with Euston as their destination are classed as business trains. Three-quarters of these trains arrived over ten minutes late. Minutes late Number of trains 10–14 10 15–19 7 20–24 3 25–29 2
8. On a Friday morning, these delayed trains would typically carry over 8,500 people.
Other trains From twitter: “Heading to London for a West End weekend @VirginTrains letting me down today”. 9. 20 “non-business” trains arrived over 10 minutes late. Minutes late Number of trains 10–14 11 15–19 5 20–24 3 25–29 - Over 1 hour 1
10. The worst-affected train was the 1300 from Euston to Manchester, which arrived at Piccadilly 63 minutes late. 11. In addition to delays, one train was completely cancelled and 17 trains could not run for their full planned journey. (To minimise passenger waiting times our approach was to start and finish selected journeys on the cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:52] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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London—Manchester and London—Birmingham routes north of Bushey, as we run three trains an hour in each direction on these routes.) Planned journey Actual journey Number of trains Euston—Birmingham New St Rugby—Birmingham New St 4 Birmingham New St—Euston Birmingham New St —Rugby 4 Manchester Piccadilly- Euston Manchester Piccadilly- Milton Keynes 4 Euston—Manchester Piccadilly Milton Keynes—Manchester Piccadilly 5
Quality of on-board experience From twitter: “@VirginTrains I booked ticket online and the trains was cancelled, then the next train was full, so I had to stand in a corridor.” From twitter: “Come on @virgintrains, I do like you, but having people standing everywhere at 3.00 pm is pathetic”. From a customer complaint: “I am currently sat in 1st class joining the train at Milton Keynes at 14.50 hours, it is now 15.46 and I haven’t been offered a drink or anything to eat. Is this the sort of service I should expect in 1st class?” 12. Naturally, with one in eight of our trains cancelled or not fully completing their timetabled journey, overcrowding occurred on our services. We know that the ability to sit for the duration of their journey is one of the key factors affecting customer satisfaction. Conversely, having to stand on long-distance services is a factor likely to discourage repeat business. 13. It is important to note that our ability to offer our normal quality of service is adversely affected beyond the immediate period of the incident in question. All Drivers, Train Managers and catering staff work on the basis of pre-planned rosters so we know all required jobs are adequately covered. Sustained periods of disruption lead to significant changes to the plan, on a minute by minute basis, as train crew quickly become displaced when their trains are delayed, cancelled or part cancelled. Train crew disruption continues for several hours afterwards while crews are realigned to jobs. This was the case on the day in question, leading to some trains having no catering staff. 31 October 2011
Further written evidence from Virgin Trains (CTR 03A) During the evidence session with ATOC and the BTP, you asked specific question about taxis during disruption: Q56 Paul Maynard: I am sorry I was late. I was stuck on a train outside Waterloo, not because of cable theft, as far as I am aware. I did not want to go into anecdotal evidence, but I have been inspired to by Ms Hilling’s questions. I was stuck for an hour and a half at the Weaver junction three Thursdays ago on a Virgin intercity train because of cable theft, and, when we eventually pulled into Preston shortly before 2 am, Virgin Trains had to lay on a fleet of taxis to transport passengers to every relevant destination to which there were no more connections. They also had to lay on, I think, a minibus. Can you confirm whether that expenditure by Virgin would have been covered by the payments that they would have been able to claim for the fact of the cable theft? Michael Roberts: I am not aware of how much compensation they would have got and how much they would have spent on the items that you indicated, but the compensation does help pay for those sorts of measures to ensure that customers get to where they need to get to in a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable degree of comfort. Q57 Paul Maynard: I genuinely do not know the answer to this, but is that level of service part of their franchise agreement, or are they doing that over and above what they have to do in order to protect their reputation, as you pointed out? Michael Roberts: The details of each agreement are different, but my instinct would be that that is not something that would have been specified in their franchise agreement with the Department. The decision to lay on taxis and minibuses would have been something that Virgin decided was the right thing to do for their customers. Under Office of Rail Regulation-approved contract clauses payments flow from Network Rail (NR) to TOCs (Train Operating Companies) for all delays, including those arising as a result of cable theft, and from TOCs to NR for such things as a broken down train delaying other operators services. Payments to TOCs are based on the forecast loss of farebox revenue to the TOC resulting from poor performance, and are determined by a periodic calibration exercise carried out by an independent party appointed by the Office of Rail Regulation. This gives a series of values to calculate compensation based on such elements as the location of the incident and its duration. Costs to us such as taxis to allow passengers to complete their journey are not recoverable under these arrangements. However, we know that reliability is a key determinant in people’s future propensity cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:52] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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to travel with us and so will always use our best endeavours to enable them to complete their journey—we want them to travel with us again. 24 November 2011
Written evidence from the Freightliner Group Ltd (CTR 04) I am writing on behalf of Freightliner Group Limited (“Freightliner”) in response to your request for evidence for your inquiry into the issue of cable theft on the railway. Freightliner is a logistics operator specialising in rail, moving some 700,000 containers and over 20 million tonnes of bulk goods by rail each year. Cable theft continues to be a major cause of disruption to both passenger and freight users of the rail network. As an example, an incident on the West Coast Main Line at Winsford this month generated nearly 24,843 delay minutes and 74 cancellations for all passenger and freight operators. Disruption to rail freight operators has been considerable, with 36,876 delay minutes incurred in the last six months alone. This equates to 14% of all delays that Network Rail is responsible for. Rail freight is vital to the efficient transport of goods around the UK. 25% of all electricity is generated by coal moved by rail; one in every four deep-sea containers arriving or departing from the UK ports is transport by rail. Many of the commodities transported by Freightliner are time sensitive requiring a “Just in Time” or next day delivery, in order to minimise stock levels and react to changes in demand. Any disruption to the efficiency of this supply chain therefore affects the efficiency of UK businesses and the overall competitiveness of the UK in the global economy. Rail freight has been successful in achieving growth of 60% since privatisation. However, the impacts of cable theft to Freightliner and other operators are considerable as it affects the reputation of rail freight and undermines the confidence of businesses that their product can be moved reliably by rail. We would be happy to discuss any of the issues raised further should you require any clarification. 31 October 2011
Written evidence from Nexus (CTR 06) 1. Introduction 1.1 Nexus is the Passenger Transport Executive for Tyne and Wear. A core part of the Nexus business is ownership of the Tyne and Wear Metro system which is operated on our behalf, through a concession agreement, by DB Regio Tyne & Wear Ltd (DBTW). The Tyne and Wear Metro is a light rail system operating throughout Tyneside on segregated track with a link to Sunderland by way of a track sharing agreement with Network Rail. The Metro system has 60 stations and has approximately 40 million passenger journeys per year. The Metro system is currently undergoing a £380 million modernisation programme.
2. Background 2.1 Metal theft is a widespread problem in the North East of England which has grown significantly as a crime in recent years, driven by a rise in metal prices on world markets. Power supply, telecoms and railway companies are all high profile victims, but churches, schools, ware memorials and local council services and amenities have also been affected. 2.2 Attacks on railway infrastructure used by Metro have increased in line with this, as thieves target power and signalling/communications cables, putting themselves at real danger of serious injury or death. This summer a 17 year old was killed during an attempted theft from an electricity substation in the Leeds area.
3. Impact on Nexus and Our Customers 3.1 During June 2011 alone Nexus suffered six separate attacks in a 30 day period, resulting in several days of disruption on parts of the network in the Newcastle and North Tyneside areas. Up to the end of August there had been 11 attacks in total on Nexus infrastructure and seven on Network Rail infrastructure, 38% more than the whole of the previous year. 3.2 The overall costs of incidents on Nexus infrastructure is estimated to be £293,000. The value of metal stolen is often negligible, and in some cases it has been found abandoned or the thieves have caused damage but taken nothing. The major costs arise from providing replacement bus services and deploying staff to assist passengers, the staff resources and equipment required to make repairs, deferring other important maintenance and renewal jobs and the loss of revenue and good will among passengers. The wider economic costs to the region from people missing appointments, being later for work or being put of travelling has not been estimated—neither has reputational damage of which there is inevitably some as customers become increasingly frustrated. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:52] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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3.3 The extent of incidents and rising costs reflects the national situation, which saw the UK railway industry suffer £16.5 million in costs in 2010–11 compared to £12.5 million in the previous financial year. The North East and Yorkshire are identified as areas where the problem is most severe, however. 3.4 The number and frequency of attacks has reduced since June, but it is reasonable to expect that there will be continued incidents and disruption to passengers.
4. Steps Nexus are taking 4.1 Nexus has set up a high level task group to look at all aspects of the problem with four strands to it: 4.1.1 Enforcement: working with police forces in new ways to improve the protection of our assts, supported by technology such as CCTV and Security marking. 4.1.2 Engineering: Identifying innovations across the European rail industry which could be exploited to protect fixed assets or replacing them through our Asset renewal Plan in a form less attractive to thieves. 4.1.3 Enabling: Reviewing operational practices for Metro to identify ways it can assist the passenger by recovering services faster or limiting the extent of disruption after attacks. 4.1.4 Education: Warn people of the risks associated with metal theft and passengers of the steps Nexus and its partners are taking to combat the problem, highlighting the impact of metal theft on the community.
5. Legislative Change 5.1 Nexus has been working with the national working group on metal theft led by Network Rail. This unites railway companies, utilities and police forces in seeking definite solutions to this problem. From this we have identified a series of asks which would press for changes to laws and regulations with the following aims: 5.1.1 A robust licensing regime (rather than the present registration) with clear requirements upon the dealers to take steps to reduce the risk that stolen materials are purchased or received. 5.1.2 Scrap metal dealers to pay a licence fee in order to give local authorities greater funds to facilitate the regulation of the licence. 5.1.3 Property obtained by virtue of breeches of the legislation should be regarded as criminal assets allowing Proceeds of Crime provisions to apply. 5.1.4 Police powers to close scrap metal dealers in line with alcohol licensing and police authority powers to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by a scrap metal dealer. 5.1.5 Restrict trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and introduce a requirement that scrap metal must be held for a certain period before being sold or processed in order to allow payments to be processed. 5.1.6 Searchable records to be kept of proof of identity of the seller of scrap and any vehicles used to transport it (eg through photo id and CCTV). 5.1.7 Magistrate powers to add restrictions onto licenses and to prevent reopening of closed yards until conditions have been met. 5.2 It is important to note that there are many entirely legitimate businesses operating in the arena. There is no desire to penalise these businesses; indeed it is hoped that improved legislation to remove dealers who deliberately seek to profit from crimes will actually increase business for the remaining, legitimate metal recycling companies. 31 October 2011
Written evidence from Northern Rail (CTR 07) 1. Northern Rail is the largest train operator in the country, connecting people with jobs, families and leisure activities across the north of England. We provide 2,500 local and regional train services every day, with over 88 million journeys being made on our services each year. 2. The theft of copper cable is a serious and growing problem for the railway in the north of England. Driven largely by the increasing price of copper on world markets, levels of this crime have increased over the last six years and this is now one of our main challenges to delivering robust and reliable services for our customers. 3. This year, we have already suffered 425 incidents of cable theft or vandalism which have affected our services. This is a 10% increase on the same period last year and has resulted in 1,346 trains being cancelled and 5,307 trains being delayed. Clearly, this is a substantial number of incidents but given the nature of this crime, even a single incident can have devastating consequences for our customers. One such example was an attempted theft at Rose Grove, Lancashire, on 22 April which resulted in the cancellation of 80 trains and 1,135 delay minutes for our customers. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:52] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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4. These crimes are causing a great deal of inconvenience for our customers, often resulting in people being late for work, missing appointments and even missing flights. In total, they reduce our Public Performance Measure by 0.5% and unless we can find an effective way to tackle this issue, there is a genuine risk that our customers will move away from our rail services onto what they perceive to be a more “reliable” mode of transport such as a car. 5. From a safety perspective, procedures are in place to ensure the safe running of our trains in the event of cable theft or vandalism. However, these incidents do create an increased safety risk as our employees are working under degraded conditions. 6. Network Rail has introduced a number of “target hardening” measures to make the cable more difficult to steal. This has included the use of “Spanish cable” which can still be identified when stripped, forensic marking of cable with products such as SmartWater and the use of covert cameras at high risk sites. However, the vast scale of our network (over 1,040 miles of track) makes this crime difficult to prevent. 7. We have also worked with our industry colleagues to help raise the profile of this issue with the media, politicians and our customers. This has included placing posters at our stations and onboard our trains to highlight the inconvenience that this crime causes to our customers and also the cost to the general taxpayer, estimated to be £43 million over the last three years. 8. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, levels of this crime continue to grow and we believe that the only way to tackle this problem in the longer term is to address the demand side of the market. The legislation which governs the scrap metal yards, the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964, is now 47 years old and we would welcome a review to ensure that it is relevant in today’s society. One specific example is the fact that under the current legislation, those selling metal to a scrap metal yard need to provide their name and address. However, there is no requirement for the dealer to verify this information via official documentation such as a passport, driver’s license or utility bill. 9. As a company, we strive to deliver consistently good local train services but the crime of cable theft is making this increasingly difficult. We will continue to work with our industry colleagues to combat this crime but without tackling the demand side of this market, it is likely that cable theft will continue to have a devastating impact on our customers, our business and the economy in the north of England. 31 October 2011
Written evidence from Metro (West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority) (CTR 08) 1.0 Summary 1.1 Cable theft is a major problem for the rail industry and is having a substantial adverse impact in West Yorkshire. It is having a substantial impact on rail performance and Metro has been working with the industry to raise awareness of the wider impacts and seek to reduce them. 1.2 Statistical evidence demonstrates a continuing increase in the number of incidents and associated train cancellations despite proactive rail industry measures to combat the problem. 1.3 There is an inevitable direct correlation between the price of copper and cable theft. With soaring prices of copper on the world markets during the past few years there has been a sharp rise in the number of cable theft incidents causing delays to passengers and the freight businesses. As a consequence there are considerable social impacts for passengers and commercial impacts for the industry and the wider economy. The price of copper on the world market is expected to rise throughout 2011 and as a consequence we envisage a continuation of the escalating trend of cable theft in our region. 1.4 Whilst the rail industry will continue to adopt robust preventative measures, legislative control on the scrap metal industry to de-incentivise criminal activity is now required.
2.0 The recent increases in cable theft 2.1 Table to show the impact of cable theft in the West Yorkshire Area Industry Performance Incidents Cancellations Delay minutes Costs* 2009–10 106 152 43,166 £980,849 2010–11 161 185 51,984 £954,294 2011–12 YTDate 97 144 34,971 £934,632
*Schedule 8 payment (incentive regime)—which is the compensation Network Rail pays for poor performance. This does not include the substantial wider costs to society. 2.2 The evidence shows a steady increase in the number of cable thefts across the West Yorkshire region as shown in the table above. This was particularly evident from 2009–10 to 2010–11 where a 52% increase in cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:52] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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the overall number of incidents was experienced. The year to date data for 2011–12 is suggesting a potential further escalation of the number of incidents and is already on par with the total incidents occurring in the 2009–10 complete period. 2.3 This is consistent with the national situation in the rail industry which has seen incidences of cable theft grow by around a third between 2008–09 and 2010–11 despite a range of industry measures to combat the issue. 2.4 Despite the fluctuations in the world price of copper, conservative estimates suggest that the price of copper will continue to rise for the remainder of 2011 and consequently a significant change in criminal activity is not envisaged whilst the price incentive exists.
3.0 The impact of these thefts on passengers and services 3.1 The rise in incidents of cable theft has resulted in an increase in the number of cancelled services and delay minutes as shown in the table at 2.1. There was a 22% increase in the number of cancellations from cable theft between 2009–10 and 2010–11 and a large number of delay minutes. It is expected that cancellations and associated delay minutes will potentially further escalate in 2011–12 in line with the increase in thefts and current year to date evidence confirms 144 year to date cancellations compared to 185 cancellations during the whole of the proceeding period. 3.2 Network rail are obligated to pay financial penalties for poor performance which has amounted to almost £1 million as a direct result of cable theft incidents in 2009–10 and 2010–11 and is likely to reach similar levels for the 2011–12 period, shown under the costs column in the table at 2.1. In addition to the penalty costs significant cost is incurred to replace cable and repair infrastructure that is damaged as a result of the thefts. This is likely to detract from other maintenance activities and lead to additional performance issues. 3.3 Aside from the statistical evidence and financial cost to the industry, the human cost is considerable resulting in disruption to commuters (and therefore businesses), missed flights, family disruptions, and child care concerns not to mention the wider financial impact on the economy from associated business losses resulting from cancelled and delayed trains.
4.0 Safety Issues 4.1 Cable theft is generally not a safety issue for the railway as signals work to fail safe, turning red if interfered with and halting trains. Thieves however do indeed risk their own safety and could cause safety issues if equipment or vehicles were left on tracks or in close vicinity to the tracks.
5.0 Measures to Combat Cable Theft 5.1 The following are measures taken by the rail industry to try and combat cable theft on the railway; — Cable Troughing Route Protection—by filling cable trough with insulation foam and gluing down the trough lid it acts as a deterrent to thieves. Maintenance does however become harder as a result but is a cheap and easy mitigation. — Cable burial—this is seen as the most effective counter to cable theft. Deeper burial usually includes renewing the cables, building in turning chambers and burying the cable in ducting between three to five feet. The turning tables enable maintenance. This method of protection is very expensive and time consuming. Scratch burial which is a shallow burial using ballast is less time consuming but is hard to maintain. — Installation of metal security fencing. — Introduction of new cable with an identification tag (this is used to convict thieves when caught), the new cable is also fire proof, knife proof and armoured but is very expensive. — Covert CCTV cameras installed. — Anti-Vandal Paint. — Trembler Alarms, will trigger if the cable is disturbed. — Proactive enforcement using, covert and overt police action, including helicopter patrols. — Encouraging passengers to contact crime stoppers to report crimes. — The British Transport Police works closely with the British Metal Recycling Association to educate scrap metal dealers about stolen metal—highlighting what to look out for when metal and cable is brought into yards. 5.2 The follow are measures which are required to assist in regulating scrap metal merchants and in turn should help to combat cable theft; — Measures to restrict trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and introduction of a requirement that scrap metal must be held for a certain period before being sold or processed in order to allow payments to be processed. — Police powers to close scrap metal dealers, in line with alcohol licensing, and police authority to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by a scrap metal dealer. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:52] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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— Searchable records to be kept of proof of identity of the seller of scrap and any vehicles used to transport it, for example, through photo ID and CCTV. — A robust licensing regime—rather than the present registration system—with clear requirements upon the dealer to take steps to reduce the risk that stolen materials are purchased or received. — Conditions under scrap metal dealers license—Suitability to trade, ability to impose conditions on Scrap Metal Dealers who break license, Scrap Metal Dealers transactions carried out outside of license to be classed as criminal activity. 31 October 2011
Written evidence from Merseytravel (CTR 09) 1. Introduction 1.1 Merseytravel welcomes the Transport Select Committee’s inquiry into “Cable Thefts on the Railway”. This is an issue of growing importance across the entire network. 1.2 However through a combination of careful planning and implementation of pro-active measures we have been able to minimise the number of incidents affecting the Merseyrail Electrics network.
2. Background 2.1 Merseytravel is the combined Passenger Transport Executive (PTE) and Integrated Transport Authority (ITA) for Merseyside, and is the public sector body responsible for the coordination of public transport across the Liverpool city region with the exception of Halton. Working with our partners across the Districts and with the business community, our objective is to produce a fully integrated transport system which is accessible to all. 2.2 Together with our private sector partners, Abellio/Serco, we operate the Merseyrail Electrics network. Merseyrail is an urban network of vital importance to the transport infrastructure of Liverpool and the city region. Merseyrail runs almost 800 trains per day and carries over 100,000 passengers on an average weekday. The Merseyrail system is the most intensively used commuter network outside of London. 2.3 Merseyrail is also one of the most punctual and reliable railway networks in the whole of the UK and also tops the passenger satisfaction levels league table. Merseyrail has approximately 1,200 staff and operates 66 stations including four city centre underground stations giving easy access to work, shopping and leisure. 2.4 Merseytravel is unique in awarding a 25 year franchise for the operation of the Merseyrail network. This has led to the establishment of a long-term relationship between the franchise holders, Abellio/Serco, and Merseytravel. This unique public/private relationship has resulted in higher levels of investment in the network directed by local needs. 2.5 It is this type of local control that has meant that Abellio/Serco and Merseytravel have taken pro-active steps to deal with the issue of cable thefts.
3. Cable Thefts on Merseyrail 3.1 Over the past year, Merseyrail has experienced only four minor incidents related to cable theft. These were all related to people attempting to steal cables, copper etc. 3.2 However, in all four incidents, the actual theft was prevented and the thieves arrested. As a result, there have been no train service disruptions due to cable theft on the Merseyrail network.
4. Our Experience 4.1 In the first instance, we do not believe that cable theft should be seen as a stand alone issue. Instead, it is part of the same overall concern of dealing with the safe and secure operation of the rail network. 4.2 We have been able to introduce a number of initiatives which involve Merseyrail’s staff in helping to deliver a safe network. In particular, there is an active programme for all drivers on the network and they are trained to identify subjects or vehicles who pose a potential issue. 4.3 Over a long period of time Merseytravel and Merseyrail have fostered and developed a relationship with the British Transport Police (BTP). The importance of the role that the BTP plays in the safe operation of the network should not be underestimated. 4.4 The BTP, for instance, undertake an extensive range of neighbourhood policing which includes elements of behaviour on the rail network. This community work has improved relations. 4.5 A good example of all stakeholders working together is provided by the last incident prevented on the network. One of the train drivers identified a van driver as acting suspiciously near the network. This was called in to the BTP who immediately despatched officers and this led to an arrest. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:52] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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4.6 There has also been a policy of “zero tolerance” of anti-social behaviour on the Merseyrail network for a number of years. A team of officers on the trains enforce bye-laws including travelling without tickets, “feet on seats”, the abuse of staff and so on. All trains have CCTV which is monitored and all stations on the network have Secure Station status. All stations, aside from just four, are also staffed from before the first train arrives until after the last train leaves. There are help points on all platforms and in some booking offices. These are linked to Merseyrail’s control centre where fully trained staff will be able to provide service information and help in any emergency situations. 4.7 In essence, a huge amount of time and effort has been spent by everyone at Merseyrail, Merseytravel and the BTP in tackling anti-social behaviour and working with communities across Merseyside. The effective operation of the system and its turn-around from being “Miseryrail” to one of the best performing railways in the country has also engendered local pride. This too has been beneficial. 4.8 In terms of the infrastructure of the network, efforts have been made to fence large sections. This has undoubtedly increased security levels. 4.9 Finally, it has to be noted that the line is electrified using a third rail system. The personal safety issues associated with this, the chance of electrocution, forms a large part of the messages delivered to local communities by Merseytravel, Merseyrail and the BTP. These personal safety issues also appear to put people off of straying onto the network and have, therefore, been a contributing factor in the minimisation of thefts on the network. 4.10 All these actions together have set a level of expectation by users and have contributed towards the overall look and feel of the Merseyrail network. The approach has not been silo-based but is instead centred on working with all relevant stakeholders in developing a locally tailored approach. 31 October 2011
Written evidence from Passenger Focus (CTR 10) 1. Introduction 1.1 Passenger Focus, the independent national rail consumer watchdog, welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Committee’s inquiry into cable theft on the railway. 1.2 Our submission focuses on the impact of cable theft on passengers. Passenger Focus’s research shows that passengers want a punctual and reliable railway. Punctuality is one of the top priorities for improvement and is the main driver of overall passenger satisfaction. Delays through cable theft clearly have an impact on passengers. This impact is further compounded by the way that the industry manages delays—something that is the main cause/driver of dissatisfaction amongst passengers.
2. Context / Scale of the Problem 2.1 In May 2011 Network Rail published statics on cable theft for the period 2008–11.1 Financial year No. Incidents Delay minutes Hours delay 2010–11 995 365,265 6,088 2009–10 656 321,570 5,360 2008–09 742 283,167 4,719 Total 2,393 970,002 16,167
2.2 It is clear that the incidence of cable theft is increasing—a 52% increase from 2009–10. It is equally clear that cable theft is causing an increasing level of delay to passenger services. 2.3 Network Rail estimates that this costs the industry around £15 million a year. There are also consequential costs to consider—ie the fact that signalling maintenance staff are hauled off what they are actually supposed to be doing in order to “fight fires”. 2.4 It is also important that cable theft is not just seen as a problem for the railway—copper theft being something that affects society in general. Any solutions, therefore, need to be seen in a similar “global” sense rather than being rail initiatives. For instance, we are aware of one proposal to implement a more robust licensing regime on scrap metal dealers.
3. Impact on Passengers 3.1 Passenger Priorities 3.1.1 In 2007 and 2009 we carried out stated preference research that asked passengers to rank a series of station and train based criteria in order of their priority for improvement. 1 http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/Press-Releases/CABLE-THEFT-ON-THE-INCREASE-AS-MILLIONS-OF- PASSENGERS-SUFFER-1756/SearchCategoryID-2.aspx cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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3.1.2 The table below shows the top ten priorities in 2009 compared to 2007. It also shows the relative importance of each attribute ranking relative to punctuality—the higher the score, the greater priority passengers assign to that service aspect.
NATIONAL RAIL PRIORITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT 2009 Score Service Improvement Preference 2007 1 1.08 Price of train tickets offer excellent value for 1 money 2 1 At least 19 out of 20 trains arrive on time 3 3 0.98 Sufficient train services at times I use the train 2 4 0.86 Passengers are always able to get a seat on the 4 train 5 0.79 Company keeps passengers informed if the train 5 is delayed 6 0.75 Information on train times/platforms accurate and 7 available 7 0.69 Maximum queue time no more than 2 mins 6 8 0.69 Trains consistently well maintained/ excellent 8 condition 9 0.67 Seating area on the train is very comfortable 9 10 0.67 Station staff are available whenever required 17
3.1.3 It is clear from this that passengers place a high priority on punctual services and in managing delay when things go wrong—both issues heavily affected by delay
3.2 Passenger Satisfaction 3.2.1 Passenger Focus consults over 50,000 passengers a year to produce the National Passenger Survey (NPS)—a network-wide picture of passengers’ satisfaction with rail travel. In the spring 2011 wave of research only 36% of passengers were satisfied with the way the industry handled delays. 3.2.2 Multivariate analysis of the NPS results reveals that punctuality is the single biggest driver of overall satisfaction. It also shows that how the industry handles delays is the biggest cause of dissatisfaction.
MAIN DRIVERS OF OVERALL PASSENGER DISSATISFACTION
National (GB) 56% 18% 4% 6% 6% Total
London and 59% 17% 4% 5% 4% South East
Long Distance 43% 23% 5% 7% 9%
Regional 54% 13% 5% 7% 6%
How train company dealt with delays Punctuality/reliability Ease of being able to get on / off the train Length of time the journey was scheduled to take (Speed) Sufficient room to sit / stand
NPS: Autumn 2010 and Spring 2011 combined. Franchised operators only 3.2.3 How the industry handles delay is such a dominant factor that there is value in exploring passenger attitudes to disruption in more detail. NPS asks an additional series of questions to passengers who have cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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indicated that they have been delayed. We can see from the table below that around one-third of those respondents rate the industry’s response to delay as poor across a number of criteria.
RESPONDING TO DELAY % rating very/fairly poorly NPS Spring 2011 Base: all respondents who London experienced a delay (franchised National and South Long operators only GB total East Distance Regional Amount of information provided 36% 36% 25% 43% Accuracy of information given 33% 34% 21% 36% Usefulness of the information 30% 31% 18% 34% Speed with which information was 34% 34% 26% 38% provided Time taken to resolve the problem 33% 34% 18% 36% Availability of alternative transport 49% 49% 34% 57% if service could not continue
3.2.4 To help understand why scores are so low and what practical steps could be taken to improve them, Passenger Focus established a “disruption panel” to obtain accounts from passengers of how their train company handled disruption. The panel consisted of regular rail travellers who provided a short report of their experiences whenever disruption occurred, together with their thoughts about what might have been handled better. Over the 12-months that the panel was in operation Passenger Focus received around 2,000 “disruption reports”. 3.2.5 The final report2 identified the importance of: — Providing accurate and consistent information. — Enabling passengers to avoid disruption in the first place—eg by telling them early enough some can plan an alternative route or use a different station. — Behaving “considerately”: when accurate information is shared in a proactive, timely way, passengers are often quite forgiving, even when the delay is lengthy.
3.3 Conclusions 3.3.1 It is clear that the incidence of cable theft is on the increase and now represents a significant source of delay to passengers in its own right. We know from our research that passengers value a punctual railway— to the extent that punctuality is the biggest single driver of overall passenger satisfaction. By contributing to delays cable theft not only adds costs to the industry, it also has a detrimental impact on passenger satisfaction. 3.3.2 By its very nature, cable theft causes unplanned disruption—something that can lead to added frustration for passengers. Our research indicates that there is still much room for improvement in the way that the industry manages such delays, particularly in the way it communicates with passengers. So, as well as focussing efforts on treating the cause of the problem (ie reduce the amount of thefts), it is also important that the industry maintains efforts on alleviating some of the “symptoms”—ie the supply of accurate, consistent and up to date information. 31 October 2011
Written evidence from the Association of Chief Police Officers (CTR 12) Introduction Metal theft has emerged as a significant and growing problem throughout the UK. Many industries including the railways, telecommunications, the power industry and utility companies have been subjected to persistent and at times systematic metal theft. The major targets of metal theft are copper, lead, aluminium, brass, zinc, nickel, platinum and bronze. These metals can be stolen in many forms including from extracting copper wiring from the ground to stealing statues from parks. These are then typically sold to a third party such as a scrap metal dealer who will melt them down or recycle them for their intrinsic value. Scrap metal is often exported to developing industrial markets such as China. Essential for the success of a multi agency approach to policing metal theft is the interaction and joint working of key stakeholders involved in metal theft investigation and prevention. This has to be across the country working together sharing information and good practise to ensure the security of power supply, telephony and transport services to local communities, industry and commerce. 2 Delays and Disruption. Rail Passengers Have Their Say. Passenger Focus. December 2010. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has implemented a joined up strategic approach to address metal theft with the objectives of reducing metal theft and bringing offenders to justice. The management of this approach has been co-ordinated by the ACPO Metal Theft Working Group. ACPO works closely with industry, Network Rail, other major infrastructure companies, local authorities, heritage organisations, and education establishments. This is key to ensuring that there is joined up, strategic approach with operational planning to achieve the joint goals of preventing metal theft, securing vital services and reducing the cost to the UK economy.
Metal Theft There have been large increases reported in metal theft by police forces across the UK, with levels remaining high for each of the rail, telecom and power industry sectors. Metal theft is a priority for BTP, although not all other forces. Metal theft remains one of the highest priorities for power networks, telecoms companies and the railway due to the significant potential for thefts to result in disruption and adversely impact their customers. The below graph shows the average number of metal thefts recorded by police forces across England and Wales. Average number of recorded Incidents by Force over period Incidents (Aug-10 - Jul-11) 800
700
600
500
400
300
200 Recorded Incidents 100 Dyfed T Gloucestshire W Ctrl Scotland Humberside Northern South W Cumbria Sussex Cheshire Merseyside Dorset Derbyshire Norfolk Northants Beds Fife Suf Devon & Herts W Hampshire Cleveland Leicestershire Cambridgeshire TVP Surrey Wiltshire A Met GMP S Y Northumbria Lancashire BTP Notts Durham Essex Kent Gwent Staf 0 W a v a e e y o r s s f orks side n & Somerset olk f wickshire t Mercia t Mids s ales
Force
There are a significant number of offences that are being reported to police forces across the UK. This is having a serious impact on the UK economy with a report by Deloitte estimating the cost to the UK economy of metal theft to be £220–260 million per year. The scale of the problem and the financial impact could be considerably larger. The Metropolitan Police suspect that the true figure for metal theft incidents in their Force area may be at least 30–40% more than has currently been identified. At present most forces are recording metal theft under the crime code of “theft- other”. England and Wales has seen a 5% increase in recorded “theft other” offences in the year to June 2011. That is 53,147 more offences. There is evidence to suggest that much of this increase could be down to metal theft. There are also unquantifiable costs to society which could include the danger to patients at hospitals because of the loss of power caused by metal theft or the environmental costs of more freight returning to the roads because of metal theft on the railways. Metal theft can have a significant impact on local communities who have been left without vital services. In July of this year 16,000 telephone customers and 26,000 broadband customers lost services in the Southampton area following an attempted cable theft in Salisbury. This also caused the disconnection of the 999 services, the National Air Traffic Service and parts of the Ministry of Defence’s communication. There are clear public safety issues caused by the theft of metal. Just recently metal thieves have stolen the lead roof of the Bishop’s Palace in Lincoln which is one of the Britain’s most important medieval ruins leading English Heritage to warn that metal theft is threatening the country’s heritage. A bronze statue of a Second World War soldier has been stolen from a memorial in Tidworth, Wiltshire. Whilst there is a financial cost to such incidents there are also great societal costs which can not be measured. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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Metal theft is not without a physical cost to those who seek to steal metal often from dangerous locations such as on mainline railway lines and electrical sub-stations. At least 10 people have been killed over the last year whilst attempting to steal metal.
Markets The prevalence of metal theft is linked to dramatic changes in the price of metals on international exchanges. BTP has seen a rising trend of metal theft over the last three years experiencing 2,000 incidents in 2010–11 compared with approximately 1,500 in 2009–10. So far in 2011–12, over 1,500 offences have been reported suggesting figures will be in excess of previous highs, a trend reflected by other police forces and industries. Metal theft is closely tied to market prices and predictions suggest rising metal prices until at least 2015. Metal theft is a “market driven” offence. The graph below shows how the number of copper related theft offences fluctuates in line with the price of copper. Cable/Copper Theft Comparison with Trade Market Trends - 01/10/10-30/06/11 (Source: London Metal Exchange (LME)) Copper p/tonne* 380 12000 360 340 320 10000 300 280 260 8000 240 224 220 220 145 206 187 200 180 176 165 168 6000 180 162 158 142 148 160 No. of Crimes 143 143 140 120 140 4000 93 106 100 80 60 2000 40 20 0 May Jun 1 Apr Feb Mar May Jun 1 Jul 1 Aug 1 Sep 1 Oct 1 Nov 1 Dec 1 Jan 1 Apr Feb Mar 0 Jan 1
11 10
11 10 11 10 0 11 10 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Average (Crimes) Copper US $ p/tonne* £ equivilent*
This is more dramatically illustrated in the below graph which is specific to the BTP. The BTP records metal theft in a separate crime category and therefore presents a very accurate picture. The graph is also specific to copper. Cable / Copper Theft Comparison with Trade Market Trends (01/01/07 - 10/10/11) (Source: London Metal Exchange (LME)) Copper p/tonne* 340 320 10000 300 280 260 8000 240
s 220 e m
i 200
r 6000 C
180 f o 160 o
N 140 4000 120 100 80 60 2000 40 20 0 0 J F M A M J J J F D A S M N O A M J J J F D M N A S O A M J J J F D M N A S O A M J J J F D M N A S O A M J J A S O a u u a u u a u u a u u a u u e e e e e p u e p u e p u e p u e p u e e o e o e o e o c c c c c a a a a a a a a a a n n l n n l n n l n n l n n l b b b b b r g p r g p r g p r g p r g p t t t t t - c v - c v - c v - c v - r y r y r y r y r y ------0 - - 0 - - 0 - - 1 - - 1 ------t ------0 0 0 1 1 0 - 0 - 0 - 1 - 1 - 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0
0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 7 8 9 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 7 8 9 0 1 7 8 9 0 1 7 7 8 8 9 9 0 0 1 1 7 8 9 0 1 7 8 9 0 1 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 1 1 7 8 9 0 1 7
No of Crimes Copper US $ p/tonne* £ equivilent*
As of October 2011, the availability of scrap metal has reduced due to merchants retaining materials for which they paid more than they can currently sell them for. However, global copper demand remains relatively strong, despite some volatility caused by the Eurozone crisis. Recent manufacturing figures from China indicate an increase in activity. The price of metal responded accordingly. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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There is expected to be an increased demand for copper into 2012 with an easing of temporary restrictions on housing construction in China. The low worldwide inventory of copper availability similarly squeezes the demand and should cause an inflation of copper prices to exceed or at least stabilise at the £5,500 per tonne mark. When coupled with increasing labour costs for miners, continuing miner disputes and disruptions caused from ore grade declines, metal commodity markets and in particular copper demand is expected to increase into 2012, driving a demand that will be met, to an extent, by the criminal engagement in theft of metals.
National Strategy The ACPO strategy for reducing metal theft first published in 2010 outlines short, medium and long term measures, which can be used to address metal theft. These measures come under four key headings. They can be summarised as follows: 1. Increase the effort required to steal metal by improving the security of metal through better practice on the part of industry by reducing vulnerability. ACPO is working closely with infrastructure operators, religious institutions, heritage institutions and education establishments to increase the effort required to steal metal by improving the security of metal used, reduce vulnerability of locations and through the adoption of better practice. This is achieved by: — Early engagement with crime reduction officers highlighting effective practice. — Encouragement of local policing teams to take a proactive role in reducing the opportunities for metal theft by working closely with metal owners. — In Sheffield, South Yorkshire police has implemented a Sheffield Metal Theft Strategy as part of the regional sub group work. This aims to create a joined up partnership of interested stakeholders to address enforcement, prevention and education issues. — Work with the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining in exploring more sustainable ways of designing out this crime. This includes making metal harder to steal and easier to detect if stolen as well as creating metal alternatives using cutting edge technology. 2. To increase the risk to offenders by ensuring that the theft of metal is no longer seen to be low risk to the criminal by supporting the use of targeted enforcement action. — Police Forces are actively engaged in joint activity including training and awareness days as well as enforcement action. The Wales Regional Intelligence Unit has created an Operation to train officers, raise awareness of metal theft issues and to rate scrap metal dealers. — Working with HMRC and Trading Standards to disrupt all avenues of criminal activity in relation to metal theft by using all available powers. Nottinghamshire Police, as part of the East Midlands regional sub group, has targeted a specific dealer and carried out enforcement and disruption activity with partner agencies. 3. To reduce the ease and reward to offenders of selling stolen metal—To provide dealers with the tools to identify stolen metals and discourage the thieves from stealing metal by reducing the cash benefits and increasing risk. — A scheme in Wales has led to 80 itinerant SMDs in the Caerphilly formally registering as scrap metal dealers and a letter has been sent to them outlining their responsibilities. 4. Increasing the risk to dealers handling stolen metals—place a greater responsibility on scrap metal dealers to take all reasonable steps to ensure they are not unintentionally supporting criminal activity. — A BTP lead operation involving Durham, Cleveland and Northumbria Police as well as the British Metal Recycling Association (BMRA) to introduce more stringent controls to scrap metal dealers. This is a three to six month trail. The ACPO strategy is implemented through the ACPO Metal Theft Working Group. A Plan of Work for Reducing Metal Theft has been produced. The Plan allocates lead agencies to the points 1–4 identified above and outlines the activity that they are responsible for and the product expected to be produced to assist with that activity. The lead agencies and key points within the plan of work can be summarised as follows: — Utilities—To increase the effort required to steal metal as identified in point 1 above. — Institute of materials—To identify more sustainable ways of designing out metal theft with the production of a long term strategy document for outlining proposals to reduce metal theft through manufacturing processes. — Wales Regional lead—To increase the risk to offenders by ensuring that the theft of metal is no longer seen as low risk to the criminal by supporting the use of targeted enforcement. — The police to reduce the ease and rewards to offenders of selling stolen metal as outlined in point 3 above. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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— The police to increase the risk for dealers handling stolen materials as in point 4 above. — Home office—To review existing legislation affecting the scrap metal industry The work is then further developed by Metal Theft Regional sub groups which consist of groupings of geographically close forces. Regional sub groups have implemented the ACPO plan of work strategy using different styles and tactics. Often the level of activity and commitment will depend on what priorities the individual Forces have within each sub group. It is clear from some of the regional sub group updates that some Forces are unaware of the extent of their metal theft problem because of data collection issues. The Regional sub groups face a major challenge. The value of metal to a thief far outweighs the risk of being successfully prosecuted when existing legislation is used. Likewise SMDs who choose to accept stolen metal or breach the Scrap Meta Dealers Act do so knowing that the financial reward makes the risks taken more than worthwhile.
Target Hardening ACPO has worked in partnership with a number of infrastructure owners to target harden vulnerable locations. However; this is often expensive and impractical to do so on a large scale. The cost to British Telecom of target hardening metal manhole covers is £500 per manhole. There are some 5 million manhole covers in the UK. A number of companies have invested in DNA technologies which when applied to the company’s metal assets transfer unique marks to those who attempt to steal it. The prevention element here comes from the associated signing that is installed to alert would be thieves of the deployment. It is not practical to deploy this preventative measure on all metal assets due to the sheer quantity and geographic spread of the assets.
Offender Management The perpetrators of metal theft can generally be split into two groups, individuals and organised crime groups. This latter group can be further split into two distinct sub-groups being internal and external.
Individuals British Transport Police (BTP) data indicates that the majority of incidents involving metal theft are perpetrated by local offenders. This data correlates with Home Office Force reporting which suggest that much of their metal theft problem is carried out by local Prolific and Priority offenders. The profile of offenders is that they tend to be white, European males, in their 20’s and 30’s with a history of “traditional” acquisitive crime. The Metropolitan Police Service report that 83% of offenders for metal theft have a previous conviction for acquisitive crime. This tends to indicate that the offence is seen as a low risk and high reward one by offenders.
Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) Metal theft on a grander scale tends to be as a result of the involvement of OCGs. They operate with cross border links, often with access to specialist knowledge and equipment to enable them to deal with technicalities of “live cable” and the large quantities involved. The profile of offender is predominantly male, in their 20s-50s who are willing to travel long distances in order to specifically target high value goods in the rail, telecommunications and power industries. Analysis of BTP Operation Landmark identified offenders travelling hundreds of miles daily, from their homes in Derbyshire to commit thefts in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, the West Midlands and beyond. The total cost of 67 offences that were committed by the group to Network Rail was £933,895.88. OCGs can be broken down into two distinct sub groups internal and external. Internal—These are industry based offenders who use intimate knowledge of their respective industry’s to acquire and dispose of metal for their own personal gain. These groups are highly organised and use their positions within an organisation to access vulnerable material at locations that would be unknown to others. For example at the site of engineering works on the railway. Often they will make use of legitimate vehicles and will take metal to favoured Scrap Metal Dealers (SMDs) in order to convert the metal into cash. External—Offenders in these particular groups tend to be from the travelling fraternity and are known to travel considerable distances in order to offend. There is evidence that recently these groups are taking a more organised approach to metal theft criminality. There are 205 known OCGs involved in criminality related to metal theft. The MPS has recorded the most (128) and the BTP has recorded 24 nationwide. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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Enablers This submission has stated the value of metal drives this crime and the ease of conversion into cash makes it attractive. There are certain other areas that provide thieves and dealers with a marked advantage and allow the unscrupulous to benefit from the misery caused to communities and train passengers. Some Metal Dealers fail to comply with the Scrap Metal Dealers Act within which there are a number of weaknesses. While Scrap Metal dealers are required to register with local authorities there is no power to reject applications. There is also no effective licensing or supervisory regime for scrap metal dealers once they are registered. Some SMDs do not keep records as required of them under the Scrap Metal Dealers Act. The Act stipulates that records should be maintained and details certain information that should be recorded for each sale. There is no requirement to corroborate the information with documentary evidence. This provides a deliberate cloak of anonymity to those who sell stolen metal. It makes and police enquiry work almost impossible to identify suspects and differentiate those from legitimate trade. This leads into the real difficulty in tracing metals once they have entered the dealers premises and been processed. There are no records maintained that allows metals to be traced back to the seller and without this line of enquiry proving ownership very difficult. The significant use of cash in the industry causes a number of problems for police. When cash is used to settle trades there is no audit trail. There is no way of identifying who paid for what, how much was paid, when it was paid and to whom it was paid. Therefore, making the identification of a suspect in unlawful transactions difficult if not impossible. For dishonest operators cash also allows the avoidance of tax and the opportunity to launder money. Fines in relation to breaches of the Act are limited to a maximum of £1,000 which is a level 3 fine. The average fine handed down to offenders charged by the BTP for SMD Act offences is £379. The rewards received by those SMDs who decide not to comply with the legislation significantly outweigh the risks and consequences that a court can impose. Particularly when the price of copper remains above £5,000 per tonne mark. If the outlets available to dispose of stolen metal were better regulated and controlled, then disposal would be made much more difficult and the operations of the illegal market that exists would be disrupted. Furthermore it would help protect public safety, services and commerce by preventing the thefts.
Conclusion Despite the police activity metal theft has continued to increase. All avenues to reduce metal theft have been exhausted and it is strongly felt by the police that legislative change is the only way to deal with an offence that is being market driven (see Appendix A for review of current legislation). It is the police position that significant impact could be made against the problem of metal theft if the following regulation were available: — An effective and enforced licensing scheme for metal dealers with the opportunity for a licence to be revoked for non compliance with conditions or for criminal activity. — The requirement within the licence conditions for metal dealers to collect and retain documentary proof of identity and address from all sellers. — A general requirement to exercise due diligence in regard to what a metal dealers buys. — Appropriate penalties available for non compliance with licence conditions or criminal activity that is sufficient to act as a deterrent against the considerable rewards that can be gained. — Options for more stringent conditions to be applied to a licence in the event of non compliance, including: 1. Restrictions on cash transactions 2. Requirement to retain metal in the form it is received for a specified period 3. Requirement to maintain CCTV at weighbridges and pay stations. — The power for the police or other authorised persons to apply for a closure order for an illegally operating metal dealer. Closure would allow the revocation or application of additional conditions. Similar powers exist under the Anti Social Behaviour Act 2003, part 1 in relation to premises where drugs are used and part 6 the environment and specifically closure of noisy premises. If SMDs and other outlets used to sell stolen metal to were better regulated it would make it more difficult to realise the cash value of the metal. The “market” that exists and supports the current wave of criminality would be significantly reduced. If there is no opportunity to convert the goods to cash then the stolen metal becomes valueless and not worth stealing. 31 October 2011 cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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Written evidence from South West Trains (CTR 13) Executive Summary 1. The organised theft of metals is having a huge impact on the rail industry and its passengers as well as on other critical aspects of the national infrastructure. It is a growing problem nationally with South West Trains having its first two major incidents in recent months. 2. South West Trains fully supports the work of the British Transport Police in tackling the issue of cable theft but believes that more needs to be done in the regulatory area by Government. This should include a robust licensing regime including a licence fee for scrap metal dealers, police powers to close scrap metal dealers and to search and investigate all scrap metal premises, restrict the trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and increased powers for magistrates to add restrictions to licences and to prevent the reopening of closed yards.
South West Trains 3. South West Trains runs a mixture of commuter routes into London and longer distance services to South West London, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Avon. We run some 1680 trains per weekday and carry around 500,000 passengers each day.
The Problem—Delays and Safety 4. Cable theft on the rail industry has grown by around a third between 2008/9 and 2010–11 despite the industry spending a considerable amount of time and money combating this crime. This includes burying cables, use of covert CCTV, special identifiers on cables, invisible marking of cable, gluing cable in place and the use of trembler alarms. The industry is also seeking to educate people and is working with British Transport Police (BTP) to visit scrap dealers, using Crime Watch and other metal campaigns, but this activity is not delivering sufficient results. There is a limit to what can be achieved through detection and prevention alone given the resources that would be required to actively monitor the whole rail network in real time on a 24 hour seven day a week basis. The amount of time and resource that BTP and Network Rail are already deploying to combat these crimes mean that they have less resource to deal with other types of crime and to make other performance improvements both of which would benefit passengers. The industry is playing its part but needs government action and support on this issue. 5. The seriousness of this type of crime was brought home to South West Trains by the events of 9 June where cable thieves disabled Network Rail’s signalling system in the Woking area at around 18.40 in the evening peak and caused huge delays to around 80,000 South West Trains customers in the evening and in some cases into the following morning. 6. On the evening in question, 17 of our longer distance trains were over three hours late with eight of these over four hours late. A further 14 trains were over one and a half hours late and an additional 80 trains were between 20 minutes and 90 minutes late and in many cases after being severely delayed these trains had to be cancelled as train crews were unable to work longer hours due to safety regulations. This meant that many customers were heavily delayed and some could not get home until the early hours of the morning. Feedback suggests that many customers did not go back into work on what was by then the same day. The cable theft incident also caused some passengers to self-evacuate from trains and walk along the tracks which meant that Network Rail had to turn the power supply off to our trains which are powered from ground level “third” rails. One of these passengers was a heavily-pregnant woman. This in turn meant that the air-conditioning on our heavily-loaded trains could not work whilst the power was off. 7. South West Trains has experienced a further instance of cable theft since June, this time just south of Guildford early on a weekday morning. Again many thousands of passengers were delayed although this time not as badly as 9 June. Some of the customers that were impacted may well have decided to stay at home rather than go to work and this is not helpful for the economy. Both of these instances of cable theft gained media coverage and there is, of course, a risk that this sort of adverse publicity may eventually have an effect on demand and the attractiveness of the railway to passengers. Word of mouth from passengers stuck on a train that doesn’t move for up to four hours also deters rail travel. A further minor incident involved the recent theft of lead from the roof of Basingstoke station. 8. The safety implications from cable theft are really concerning not to mention the personal and economic dislocation that these events can cause. This problem is not confined to the rail industry and rail is a member of a pan-industry group representing the main industries affected including power and telecommunications. The British Transport Police estimate that the cost to the UK economy of this disruptive activity in 2010 was around £800 million. The problem is also growing as these two incidents are the first that have really affected our network.
Current BTP Proposals 9. Through this pan-industry group, Stagecoach fully supports the work of the BTP on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers in their aims to: cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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9.1 Make cable/metal increasingly difficult to steal (through target hardening/mitigation/sharing of best practise); 9.2 Increase the risk to offenders (though tougher sentencing/better chance of being caught); 9.3 Reduce the value of the commodity to offenders (possibly through technology to “contaminate” stolen metal); 9.4 Reduce the attractiveness of stolen metal to scrap metal dealers; 9.5 Seek legislative change to take away the illegal market in stolen metal.
Further Recommendations for Action 10. Criminal activity in this area is so damaging to our wider economy that we simply must act in this case. We understand that government is now minded to look at a range of options to tackle this problem including introducing new or amending legislation directed at the scrap metal industry and we strongly support this. Among the measures we wish to see are: 10.1 A robust licensing regime (rather than the present registration) with clear requirements upon the dealer to take steps to reduce the risk that stolen materials are purchased or received. 10.2 Scrap metal dealers to pay a licence fee in order to give local authorities greater funds to facilitate the regulation of the licence. 10.3 Property obtained by virtue of breaches of the legislation should be regarded as criminal assets allowing Proceeds of Crime provisions to apply. 10.4 Police powers to close scrap metal dealers in line with alcohol licensing and police authority to search and investigate all premises owned and operated by a scrap metal dealer. 10.5 Restrict trade in scrap metals to cashless payments and introduce a requirement that scrap metal must be held for a certain period before being sold or processed in order to allow payments to be processed. 10.6 Searchable records to be kept of proof of identity of the seller of scrap and any vehicles used to transport it (eg through photo id and CCTV). 10.7 Magistrate powers to add restrictions on to licences and to prevent re-opening of closed yards until conditions have been met. 11. Clearly there are many entirely legitimate businesses operating in this arena and there is no desire to penalise these businesses. Indeed, it is hoped that improved legislation to remove dealers who deliberately seek to profit from crimes will actually increase business for the remaining, legitimate metal recycling companies. We would also expect that these regulations, particularly in respect of cash payments, will increase the amount of tax payments to the Treasury. We believe that these regulations would have a very positive overall economic impact as well reducing the number of disruptive events for rail passengers. 12. We understand that the BTP are working with Home Office officials on preparations for potential legislative change. We strongly welcome this initiative and hope that we can count on government’s continuing commitment in securing the support needed across government to make very rapid progress on this important issue. In our view it is absolutely essential that new regulations are introduced as soon as possible. 1 November 2011
Written evidence from the Greater London Authority (CTR 15) 1. Introduction 1.1 The Greater London Authority (GLA) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Committee’s inquiry into this topic. 1.2 The theft of cable and other equipment containing metal has become a major issue with the global price of metals having risen significantly. Several sectors and organisations have been targeted, notably energy distribution, telecoms and transport, including Transport for London (TfL), which is part of the GLA family, and Network Rail. 1.3 There is legislation in place that can address metal theft and the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 is one relevant piece of legislation. However, there are significant problems with the practicalities of the legislation particularly in relation to traceability of metal once it has arrived at a scrap metal dealer and the ease with which stolen metal can be converted to cash. Whilst current legislation ensures that scrap metal dealers have to make certain records upon receipt of metal there is no need for them to corroborate the information given to them. This makes identification of stolen metal and the original owner of the metal very difficult. The conversion of metal to cash prevents any audit trail and makes many transactions unaccountable. These two issues are the root cause of the difficulties faced and sensible change to current legislation would considerably improve the means by which this problem can be addressed. Further details and our other recommendations are below. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [E] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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2. Cable Theft on the Railways 2.1 It is estimated that cable theft cost London Underground (LU) between £1.9 million and £4 million in 2010–11 compared with more than £16½ million for Network Rail. Cable and metal theft, however, can cause severe disruption to services, not only in terms of the immediate impact, but also in terms of the time taken to repair or replace missing equipment. This is in addition to the considerable safety risks people expose themselves to when trespassing on the railway to steal materials and equipment, and the potential for wider consequences caused by disruption to power and telecoms, such as the reduced access to 999 system. 2.2 Two distinct types of theft appear to predominate: random small-scale theft of signalling and other trackside cable and the more organised major thefts of complete drums from work sites using heavy plant. The perpetrators of these two types of crime appear to be equally distinct. The theft of complete drums, potentially involving organised groups, raises more complex questions of how cable from such thefts is being disposed of. 2.3 TfL’s material losses of in service cable have been relatively small by comparison with National Rail in terms of direct monetary losses resulting from the need to replace stolen cable and associated infrastructure damage, network disruption and lost customer hours and reputational damage. However, it is still an issue that impacts on London’s economy and the ability of people to travel on its transport networks. 2.4 The number of incidents is significantly lower on TfL’s rail networks (LU, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway) when compared to other areas of the country. This is because much of LU’s track is underground; train frequencies are higher; the generally higher standards of fencing; and the natural surveillance provided by operating in populated areas. This is in addition to the measures that TfL takes, alongside the British Transport Police (BTP), to combat the threat of cable theft (see Section 3). 2.5 There have also been instances of metal being stolen from bus stops and shelters, although crime on and around London’s bus network remains low. The majority of incidents have involved small quantities of metal being stolen and TfL has recorded more than 500 thefts of this type since July 2010. TfL and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) are working closely to combat this issue and are pursuing the harshest penalties for those found responsible, including civil debt recovery. 2.6. Cable theft strategies are in place for both LU and for the bus network and these plans are being implemented by multi-agency Infrastructure Security Groups. These groups meet regularly to monitor trends and current issues; to review tactics and interventions, and to monitor the effectiveness of specific activities. 2.7 The LU strategy, for example, identifies four priority areas: — Cable in service (service impacting)—essential to the running of services; — Project cable—un-energised cable in the process of being or having been laid as part of network upgrades, improvements or repairs; — Redundant cable—taken out of service and no longer in use but acts as an incentive for criminal activity such as trespass; and — Bulk storage sites.
3. Measures to Combat Cable Theft 3.1 TfL is also working with both the BTP and the MPS to tackle cable and other metal theft on the railway and wider transport system. A programme of measures has been adopted including: — An extensive network of 12,000 CCTV cameras across the network, meaning that suspicious behaviour can be detected and police deployed. These cameras are used extensively for investigation and detection purposes; — A strong TfL-funded visible police presence, with some 700 officers patrolling the LU/Docklands Light Railway networks and enhanced policing on London Overground. In addition, there are over 1,000 officers in borough Safer Transport Teams who guard against metal theft from the surface transport system as part of their duties; — A workforce of over 15,000 operational staff, who are trained to report any suspicious behaviour or signs of trespass; — A zero tolerance approach to graffiti and trespass with an approach that, always pushes for the strongest possible action to be taken on both issues; — TfL assists the work of the BTP, who use various tactics including covert operations and community based intelligence; and — Developing work on increasing the marking of cables, swiftly clearing unused cable from the network and increasingly tracking the disposal of cables.
4. Recommendations 4.1 Although London has seen less of an impact than some areas, the number of incidents has risen significantly over the past three years and we take the issue extremely seriously. We believe that a number of further measures would greatly assist in tackling this problem. These include: cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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— Tougher penalties for trespassers on the TfL network. Currently, those who trespass on the network are committing an offence under TfL bye-laws. We want the Government to reclassify trespass on the transport network to make it an offence that carries a higher penalty; — Reduce the prevalence of cash in the scrap metal system. The use of cash as the main medium of trading has attracted the increase in criminal activity. If the industry moved to a “cashless” system this would help protect scrap dealers and aid criminal investigation. We want the Government to introduce a cashless system for the scrap metal sector. This has been done with some success in certain US states; — Tighten up regulation of scrap dealers. We support any legislative change that would enhance the police’s powers in relation to the detection and prosecution of perpetrators and their accomplices. We want the Government to look at: — A programme of licensing for the scrap industry that includes provision for charging; — Granting the police enhanced powers of entry/seizure for breach of licence; — Improved ability for the police to implement closure orders; — Impose conditions for non-compliance/criminal activity; — The introduction of “suitability to trade” regulations—so that those operating scrap yards meet some standard criteria about their suitability to do so; — Requiring scrap yards to produce documentation to the Police or authorised personnel; and — Creating a statutory duty on local police forces to monitor the scrap metal sector. — Tougher penalties for those found guilty of metal theft. The GLA wants the Government and courts to recognise the impact of cable theft on the transport system and wider communities and introduce tougher penalties for those that commit offences. The creation of “aggravated” offences related to infrastructure damage and theft (in a similar way as staff assault offences are considered “aggravated” within sentencing guidelines) would, in our opinion, increase the deterrence value. We believe this will assist in delivering more effective enforcement against perpetrators of cable and metal theft.
5. Conclusion 5.1 Cable and metal theft from London’s transport infrastructure, and more generally, is a growing concern and working with other agencies, TfL has implemented a range of measures to address the problem. Further action, however, is required and the GLA and TfL are discussing the next steps with central government, the police and transport industry partners. On 29 November 2011, the GLA will hold a conference on metal theft to bring together all relevant stakeholders in order to debate the issues, share best practice and agree future action. 2 November 2011
Written evidence from The Office of Rail Regulation (CTR 17)
Reflecting our role, this response will cover: (1) The impact of these thefts on passengers and rail services. (2) Safety issues. (3) Measures to combat cable theft.
Role of ORR ORR is the independent safety and economic regulator of Britain’s railways. It is a non-Ministerial Government Department which is independent and accountable to Parliament.
ORR promotes safety and value in railways in England, Wales and Scotland. ORR: — Determines Network Rail’s outputs and funding, reflecting government specifications and the money available. — Monitors and enforce delivery of those outputs. — Ensures compliance with health and safety legislation for all railways in Great Britain, by inspection, audit and enforcement. — Approves or directs applications from train operators for access to Network Rail’s network. — Monitors and enforces compliance with competition and consumer law in the rail sector.
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Headline Response The high price of copper makes signalling and other cables on the railway infrastructure an attractive target for thieves and therefore cable theft is a consistent problem on the UK rail network as well as more generally, including other utilities (such as electricity distribution). Cable theft causes considerable delay, disruption and inconvenience to passengers; it requires inefficient use of Network Rail resources to remedy, and it significantly dilutes the normal engineering controls on risk. Although the effects are primarily performance-related, when modified operating procedures are introduced they have greater potential for human error. And while maintenance staff are responding to and rectifying cable theft faults they are not carrying out their planned proactive work, so there is a further impact on the safe and efficient management of assets. ORR monitors and enforces Network Rail performance against overall targets set by our periodic review, which themselves reflect specifications set by government. We expect Network Rail to take actions open to it, including in respect of cable theft, to meet these targets. ORR does not directly act to prevent cable theft but strongly supports Network Rail in its work on prevention, detection and response with partners including British Transport Police. Given the high cost of disruption and delay to customers ORR would strongly support Government measures to regulate the trade in scrap metal.
Detailed Response 1. The impact of these thefts on passengers and rail services Cable theft causes significant disruption to the normal operation of railways. Over the last three years, incidents attributable to cable theft have caused over 16,000 hours of delay which equates to around £43 million of lost revenue applying normal conventions used in operational performance regimes. This is besides the cost of replacement and repair of the cables. External vandalism and theft was second only to external fatalities as a cause of Network Rail delay in the first half of 2011–12, accounting for 8.7% of delays. In 2010–11, incidents of cable theft increased by 55.3 % compared to 2009–10, whilst the delay minutes caused by cable theft increased by 13.6 %. . These delay figures do not include cancellations and therefore the impact on passengers will be greater than this. There has been a clear, significant rise in the number of incidents since the start of 2010–11. The figures are (for cable theft): Year Incidents Delay minutes Delay mins per incident 2007–08 693 244,074 352 2008–09 745 283,167 380 2009–10 658 321,570 489 2010–11 1,022 365,430 358 2011–12 (to P7) 634 237,968 375 % change 2010–11 to 2009–10 55.3% 13.6% -26.8%
Disappointingly, despite a relatively ambitious target and an undoubted increase in efforts at prevention and detection and at response (the latter reflected in the reduction in delay per incident), there has been a further worsening in the overall impact on the railway.
2. Safety issues When the signalling system is interrupted, the infrastructure “fails to safe” which means that all lights turn red. Subsequently, however, in order to move stationary trains, modified operating procedures are introduced which have a greater potential for human error: — Manual route setting: points changed individually by members of staff on the ground rather than from a signal box where they are fully integrated with the associated signals. — Verbal instructions to train drivers to pass signals at danger (red lights). — Temporary block working: this is a very basic method for moving trains, where the network is divided into “blocks” that may only hold one train at a time to prevent collisions. — Reliance on voice communications rather than signals which are engineered to ensure safety. — Absence of all the usual controls in the signalling system which only allow trains to proceed when the route has been proved clear of other traffic and the points correctly set. cobber Pack: U PL: CWE1 [O] Processed: [25-01-2012 13:53] Job: 017856 Unit: PG01
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These procedures are inherently time consuming and drivers will often be instructed to proceed more cautiously than usual. They rely on accurate communications between signallers and staff on ground as to the locations concerned, and on drivers obeying written instructions from a handsignaller. Besides increasing journey times these procedures greatly reduce capacity. In practical terms this will manifest itself in cancellations of some trains or closure of some lines to focus on key routes. There will often be overcrowding on the remaining trains and at stations. Anecdotally, ORR has seen an increase in operating irregularities attributable to disruption from cable theft. This includes wrongly routed trains, two trains in a section, and mistaken authorisation of conflicting moves.
3. Measures to combat cable theft ORR has met with Network Rail (NR) and British Transport Police (BTP) on several occasions to discuss the measures being taken to combat cable theft. NR and BTP have introduced a number of initiatives to tackle the problem, including: — Burying cables as part of renewals schemes. — The use of covert CCTV cameras at known “hot spots”. — The use of readily identifiable railway cables. — Marking the cables with an invisible dye, such as Smartwater™. — “Hardening” the infrastructure through putting foam amongst the cables in the lineside troughing, encasing in concrete and glueing the troughing lids down. — The use of trembler alarms to give early warning of attacks. — Extensive media campaigns and use of Crimestopper rewards. — BTP visits to scrap metal dealers to search for stolen cable. BTP has also reorganised the force to include extra resources and officers embedded in NR to ensure better liaison. Non-police security officers have begun patrols on the London-North East route, augmenting BTP efforts and allowing them to target priority areas. BTP has fed back that when deterrents are successful in one area they tend to shift the problem along to another. The best “hardening” of targets is achieved when they anticipate where the thieves will move to. However they noted that there is a pilot scheme currently running in County Durham to require that identification is provided when deals are done with scrap metal merchants. 8 November 2011
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