London Underground: a resilient network

The Tube is the backbone of London’s transport network and carries over three million passengers per day, on more than 500 trains at peak times. It travels through 275 stations along hundreds of miles of tracks and tunnels.

The terrorist attacks on July 7, 2005 and subsequent events were unprecedented in the history of London Underground. At approximately 08:50 hrs on July 7, three explosions took place almost simultaneously on three Tube trains. These were in tunnels close to Aldgate and Edgware Road, and on a train that had left King’s Cross on route to Russell Square on the Piccadilly line, killing 38 people and injuring several hundred. A further explosion took place at 09:47, onboard a Route 30 bus at Tavistock Square, killing 14 close to Russell Square.

Between 08:45 and 09:00 on July 7, more than 200,000 passengers would have been traveling on over 500 trains. London Underground followed its well-practiced procedures to keep passengers safe based on the information received. The majority of passengers were evacuated within one hour, however, evacuating the entire Underground system does not go without risk. As a result of this, London Underground alerted the surface transport network of the impending major passenger flows that may occur on the London Buses and the Docklands Light Railway.

In its 142-year history, the Underground has faced many threats to its security, most notably from Irish Republican terrorists. Robust procedures have been developed over a number of years with the police and the security services and these remain under constant review. Improvements to Tube security in recent decades have seen the introduction of vending machines with curved tops, minimal seating on platforms and the removal of litter bins from stations.

London Underground, the British Transport Police and all emergency services have had specific contingency plans in place to respond to the threat of chemical and biological attacks since the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

All stations on the London Underground network have a staff presence and larger stations typically have 20 or more staff on each shift, ensuring that a sufficient number of staff are available to deal with emergency situations.

Each year, London Underground is legally required to hold an emergency exercise on the network involving all the emergency services to test the procedures and plans that are in place. The last exercise was held on 12th June, 2005 at Tower Hill station, less than four weeks before the attacks took place.

The events of July 7 clearly demonstrated that the Tube was now faced with the phenomenon of the suicide bomber, a threat previously unknown in the UK, although contingency plans were in place with the police. Any traditional deterrent and interception measures are likely to be ineffective. Here effective response to an incident is key.

London Underground is a member of the London Resilience Forum, a government network established in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks in the United States during 2001.

The London Resilience structures worked well on July 7, 2005. Immediately following the attacks, London Underground – at many levels throughout the organisation – was able to communicate swiftly and effectively with the Police, emergency services and Government, enabling a co-ordinated, efficient and effective London response to the most serious major incident in the city’s recent history.

This response was no accident. The London Resilience structures had been well planned and tested through several exercises prior to the July attacks.

The same structures and procedures were then activated on July 21, 2005 when similar attempted attacks were made on the Tube network at the Oval, Shepherd’s Bush and Warren Street stations. This was followed shortly by an attempted attack on the bus network.

In the immediate aftermath of the July attacks, additional security measures were introduced. All front-line staff were required to wear high-visibility clothing, trains were checked at termini, and security at depots was reviewed and reinforced where necessary.

Passengers witnessed a highly visible presence of British Transport Police (BTP) across the Tube network supported by their colleagues in the Metropolitan Police Service. There is always a need to balance increased Police visibility that provides reassurance with levels of visibility that cause alarm.

In 2003, there were around 450 BTP officers for London Underground. During the last two years this has increased to around 650 officers. BTP deployment patterns have been designed to be random to provide reassurance and to act as an additional deterrent. More importantly, BTP understand and know the environment and the impact if inappropriate action is taken.

The key to success in improving security on the Tube is to find the right balance between low and high technology measures.

The challenge in today’s security climate is striking the right balance between running a mass transit service that keeps London moving whilst introducing stricter security measures that, in practice, can make it harder for people to travel.

The increasing use of CCTV

Prior to July 7, London Underground was already one of the world’s biggest users of CCTV and is at the forefront of its use on a mass transit system. There are approximately 6,000 CCTV cameras on the Tube network which will double to 12,000 over the next five years as part of the ongoing station modernisation programme.

This will see the upgrading and expansion of CCTV facilities from analogue to digital and the recording of high quality images to hard drive rather than magnetic tape. This will ultimately mean that no one will be able to enter the Underground network without their face being recorded by CCTV camera. London Underground is presently considering accelerating the CCTV modernisation programme further.

The extensive nature of the existing system enabled London Underground to provide the police and the security services with images of the suspects from the attacks on July 7 and the attempted attacks on July 21.

CCTV coverage also extends to trains and will be expanded as new rolling stock arrives on the network. Footage from CCTV cameras can not only be viewed and monitored locally by a specific station but can also be accessed remotely by the Network Operation Centre at London Underground HQ and by the British Transport Police.

London Underground continues to monitor developments in technology that could help to improve security and the safety of passengers. An important consideration is that the Tube is a mass transit system that moves more than three million people every weekday.

Heathrow Airport, one of the world’s busiest international airports, handled 67.1 million passengers last year while London Underground carried a record 976 million passengers. Airport-style body scanners may therefore not be practical to work in a mass transit system.

However, it is important to test new and existing technologies. LU continues to keep abreast of a range of technological solutions to improve security on the Tube, although any technology will have to be fit for purpose, work reliably in the tube environment and be socially acceptable.

During 2003, London Underground trialed software called Intelligent Pedestrian Surveillance at Liverpool Street station, which analysed CCTV footage. The aim of the software was to help CCTV operators spot any abnormal behaviour.

The trial indicated that operational staff were better able to identify abnormal behaviour more quickly than the software. It also had a high false alarm rate.

Technology is constantly advancing. Whilst CCTV was not found to work in our particular environment in 2003, we keep this under review and would consider using such software again if significant advances had been made and we could be clear of the real benefits of this technology.

In August 2005, the New York MTA announced that it had awarded a $212 million contract to Lockheed Martin for a state-of-the-art Integrated Electronic Security System (IESS) to enhance security throughout their transport network.

This will see the immediate installation of more than 1,000 CCTV cameras and 3,000 sensors. Security sensor technology integrated with the electronic system will include motion sensors, perimeter sensors, intelligent video, conventional CCTV as well as threat detection technologies. London Underground will be watching with interest how the improved technology operates on the New York subway.

The Department for Transport recently announced that it is to work with the rail industry and other Government experts to find practical solutions that potentially could be introduced to an urban mass transit system. A trial of security technology and equipment will take place on the public transport network on both the London Underground and the national rail network with a view to determining the application of specific technology, in particular transportation environments. London Underground is working with the DfT to learn the lessons of this trial.

London Underground also meets and exchanges information with the world’s major metro systems on a regular basis, particularly on anti-terrorism measures.

London is not the only transport network to have suffered a terrorist attacks. Our colleagues in Madrid and Moscow have also had to deal with major incidents in recent years. We know that there are lessons we can learn and experiences we can share with other transport networks from around the world.

At the beginning of November 2005, London hosted the International Association of Public Transport conference (UITP), “Anti-Terrorism in Public Transport”, which was addressed by both the Secretary of State for Transport, Alistair Darling MP and LU Managing Director, Tim O’Toole. The conference provided security managers from major public transport networks worldwide the opportunity to discuss current security strategies, technologies and share lessons learned from recent incidents.

Prior to the July 7 attacks, London Underground was working on an agreed Security Improvement Programme. This was set-up to target potential vulnerabilities in light of the new threats we face. This has been expanded since July 7 to take into account lessons learnt and incorporates a review of emergency equipment amongst other issues.

While technology can be deployed to make a siginificant contribution detecting terrorism, one of the best anti-terrorist technologies that we have available to us is the eyes and ears of our 13,000 operational employees and three million passengers who use the system each day.

We constantly remind passengers to remain vigilant in alerting staff or the British Transport Police to anything suspicious and to keep their belongings safe at all times.

One of the biggest causes of security alerts on the Tube has been the high numbers of unattended items. Despite an initial drop in the number of items left by forgetful passengers, this has now increased to previous levels and we still experience more than 300 unattended items each day.

London Underground has a procedure in place called the HOT protocol. This is the process by which staff and police who patrol the network decide how to deal with unattended items. They must ask themselves three questions: Is it hidden? Is it obviously suspicious? Is it typical of the environment? This simple procedure has helped to greatly reduce the number of objects being declared suspicious, and thereby reduced the amount of disruption on the system.

Unlike the aviation industry, it is impossible to make an urban mass transit system 100% safe. London’s Underground network encompasses hundreds of miles of track and tunnel with around 55% of the system above ground. As it is an open system carrying millions of passengers per day, it is practically impossible to screen every single passenger before they travel on our network.

Instead, we have to be realistic about what can and cannot be done within the particular constraints and characteristics of our network. Whilst we cannot prevent all terrorist eventualities, we can make our transport networks as hostile as possible to security threats through the provision of low and high technology solutions alongside the increased vigilance of passengers.