Honiton: South Western Railway rolls out body-worn cameras to improve staff and customer safety

South Western Railway staff will wear body cameras in a bid to reduce anti-social behaviour.

The cameras, which will be worn by staff at stations and on trains across the network, will help employees feel safer at work and will help customers travel with more confidence.

It is hoped that they will reduce incidents of assaults, threats and intimidation towards staff.

The company is undertaking a phased roll out of the cameras after a successful trail period, which started in June 2021 for staff working out of Fratton depot. The cameras are currently being rolled at Bournemouth, Richmond, Weymouth, Farnham, Woking, Eastleigh, Portsmouth, and Guildford, and will soon include SWR staff working out of Salisbury and Basingstoke.

The new cameras will provide better quality images and, when used in conjunction with the CCTV footage, will allow SWR to capture better quality evidence for prosecutions and cases in court.  

Christian Neill, SWR's Customer Experience Director, commented:  "Customer and colleague safety will always be our top priority. We are always looking for ways to help our customers travel with greater confidence and ensure that colleagues feel safer at work. 

"These body-worn cameras are designed to do just this, by deterring anti-social behaviour on our services and reducing the number of assaults our colleagues experience at work. 

"While we wish that we could prevent every incident, we expect that the new footage will help authorities in any prosecutions by providing good quality evidence."