Clapham Common Tube evacuation: Better training needed – RAIB

London Underground staff were not given the training needed to deal with an incident at Clapham Common last May, the rail safety investigator has found.

Passengers on a northbound Northern Line train pressed the emergency alarm after thinking they had smelled smoke.

Windows were smashed and doors forced open as passengers self-evacuated.

Transport for London (TfL) says it has already made changes to its training “which will be in place in the coming weeks”.

An estimated 500 people were on board on 5 May when the train stopped with the leading two cars in a tunnel and the remaining four cars adjacent to the platform.

In December, a TfL report said customers on the platform “reacted with concern” by pulling train doors open and breaking train windows, which escalated the problem.

The report also said there was no fire but the smoke and smell of fire probably came from debris that had gathered on one of the braking units.

Multiple station alarms were pushed, which in turn triggered the station evacuation message to start sounding.

All passengers were evacuated from the train within 11 minutes of the onboard alarm being pressed and five minutes before firefighters arrived on the scene.

The RAIB report said: “Passengers perceived a significant risk from fire and they became increasingly alarmed when the train’s doors remained closed and they did not receive suitable information or see any effective action from London Underground staff.

“An underlying factor to the incident was that operational staff were not provided with the procedures or training needed to effectively identify and manage incidents where passenger behaviour can rapidly escalate.”

Andrew Hall, the RAIB’s chief inspector of rail accidents, said: “Out-of-course events can rapidly escalate into emergencies if not responded to promptly and effectively.

“During this incident staff didn’t fully appreciate the emerging safety risk when passengers’ behaviour began to escalate as they became increasingly anxious.

“When passengers did not receive suitable information about the nature of the incident and the actions they should take, nor see action they would have expected to be taken, they turned to desperate measures to self-evacuate.

“RAIB investigated a similar incident at Holland Park in 2013… However, it was subsequently removed from the training syllabus and since then knowledge of the lessons learnt may well have begun to fade.”

Nick Dent, London Underground’s director of customer operations, said: “I would like to apologise again for the distress this incident caused to customers at Clapham Common and would like to reassure Londoners that we are continuing to do all we can to ensure the safety of everyone on the Tube.

“We welcome any opportunities to learn lessons from incidents on our network and, following our own investigation last year, we are already making good progress on the recommendations from the RAIB.”