GTR shares its top 10 tips for passengers returning to train travel

Credit: Govia Thameslink Railway

Steve White, Chief Operating Officer at GTR, said: “Throughout the coronavirus lockdown, the teams at Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern have been working solidly to keep key workers moving and now, as restrictions ease, they are again working effortlessly to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all passengers. While we are doing our bit, we ask all our passengers to consider the safety of others and follow our top 10 tips and where possible stagger their journey as much as possible to help everyone stay safe.”

GTR’s top 10 tips for passengers, are:

1. Do not travel if you feel unwell or have any symptoms of COVID-19  
2. Wear a face covering when you are travelling on the train and ensure you sanitise your hands before and after travelling  
3. Use contactless payment as much as you can or switch to the Key smartcard – this means that you can avoid going to the ticket office and/or machines as much as possible  
4. If possible, stagger your journey and avoid the morning and evening peaks
5. Use your elbow to open the door button to keep your hands clean
6. Avoid eating and drinking on board – keep your face covering securely in place for your whole journey  
7. When taking the escalator, stand on the right, do not walk down on the left and leave a few steps in between yourself and the person in front to allow for a gap
8. Try boarding at the front or end of the train as there may be more space  
9. Keep your distance from other travellers
10. Follow social distancing guidance at stations and advice from station staff.

GTR is supporting social distancing with a wide range of measures, including one-way and queuing systems at the busiest stations, with 19,000 floor signs across the network, 25,000 train signs, posters, adverts and announcements to remind people to socially distance. One thousand touch-free hand sanitiser points have been installed at stations and a staff app has been developed to monitor passenger volumes and movements to identify ‘hot spots’ across the network – it uses data from trains, ticket sales, ticket gates, and from staff seeing where social distancing may not be being observed. This can also be used to modify services where possible 

To keep passengers and staff safe, there is an enhanced cleaning regime focused on touch points, including all 2,700 train carriages to be sanitised every night, treating all trains with a powerful new viruscide which sticks to surfaces, killing viruses for up to 30 days. The product is also being used to treat stations, offices and other staff locations such as depots.

To help ease customer concerns, the key workers from Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern have created a short video (below) to reassure passengers of the work being done and to demonstrate the small things we can all do to stay safe.