Downing Street Says » Rail security

Asked what the point of the trial of airport-style scanners on the Heathrow express platform at Paddington was, the PMOS said that this was a pilot scheme to test methods of improving security at railway stations. In this instance the main purpose was to test the application of security equipment in a busy, modern railway station. Asked if everyone travelling to Heathrow would be scanned, the PMOS said no. People would be searched at random. The aim was to test the equipment to see how you could balance the need to insure this capability without impeding travel. This had been announced in early December last year.

Asked if this was inspired by the events of 7/7 the PMOS said that of course 7/7 had changed the picture in terms of security, but the PMOS stressed this was mainly about testing the equipment and not a response to a specific security threat. Put to him that the random searches might be open to accusations of racial profiling, the PMOS said that anyone who regularly went through Belfast airport, for instance, would have had experience of random searches, this was not a new security approach. Put to him that even if this test went fantastically well the Government couldn’t seriously be considering having airport-style searches at all stations, the PMOS said that the Government recognised, and the public also recognised, that a railway system of one billion passengers a year, 11,000 miles of track, over 2,500 stations and three million passengers per day on the Underground placed limitations on security.

But equally we still had to do everything possible to insure that people knew that security operations were taking place. This was all about testing the equipment, seeing how it worked and taking it from there. Asked if the PMOS had not answered his own question by demonstrating how unfeasible such a system would be, the PMOS said that it was a way of enhancing security and if people believed that there was a possibility that they might be searched that was in itself a help to security.

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» Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Rail security

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