Written by Kevin Cook, IKON Trainer.

Keeping conversations on track: Why supporting transport workers goes beyond training

There is a lot that the latest rail safety data can tell us about violence and aggression on the railway. However, what it cannot tell us is what it feels like to be the person standing on a platform, at a gateline or on a train when a difficult interaction starts to change.

The latest figures from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) show that there were 11,289 reported workforce assaults on the mainline railway between April 2025 and March 2026, up 12% on the previous year. The figure includes verbal abuse, physical assaults and threats. Reported assaults involving passengers and members of the public also increased by 36%, reaching the highest level recorded in that series.

The numbers show the scale of the issue. But after years of working with people across the rail industry, I think there is another conversation worth having: what happens to the people dealing with these situations, and what happens after they report them?

The numbers tell us more than just how often it happens

An increase in reported incidents gives the industry more information about the scale of the problem, but it does not necessarily tell us whether more violence is occurring, reporting is improving, or both. This particularly matters when work-related violence has historically been underreported across the rail industry. RSSB has previously highlighted underreporting as a barrier to understanding the full scale of the problem.

At the same time, statistics don’t capture the uncertainty that can sit behind an incident. A member of staff might know they need to challenge a behaviour, but still have questions about what happens next. Should they intervene? What if the person becomes confrontational? What if they are filming? What if support isn’t immediately available? What happens if they report the incident afterwards?

Those are the moments I hear about in conversations with people working in rail.

One of the biggest concerns I see is a reluctance to report incidents or use body-worn cameras because some staff still feel there is a risk of being scrutinised for how they tried to de-escalate or protect themselves.

If people don’t feel that they will be supported, or don’t believe anything will happen after they report something, that can affect confidence. And that is where the numbers only tell part of the story.

What happens when frontline staff don’t feel supported?

There are good managers and good approaches across the transport industry. I see plenty of them.

But what concerns me is when the same problems keep appearing without a clear sense that anything has changed.

Staff can be told to call for British Transport Police, for example, but what happens when nobody is immediately available? They can report a repeat offender, but what happens when they encounter the same person again? They can use a body-worn camera, but what happens if they are then worried about whether their own actions will be questioned?

Over time, those experiences can change how people respond.

I’ve heard the phrase, “You either do things the right way, the wrong way or the rail way.” It’s said as a joke, but there is something underneath it that is worth taking seriously.

The same applies to comments such as “that’s how we’ve always dealt with it” or “it’s just part of the job.”

Challenging behaviour may be something frontline transport workers encounter. That doesn’t mean they should be left feeling that they have to deal with it alone.

Training has a role to play here, but it cannot sit in isolation. People also need to know that the organisation around them will support appropriate decisions, take reports seriously and learn from what has happened. The response to an incident can be bigger than the incident itself.

The behaviour might be simple. The situation rarely is.

One of the things that stands out when you spend time in the training room is how quickly a straightforward situation can become more complicated.

Take smoking or vaping on a train.

The rule itself might be clear. The difficult part can be what happens when a group of young people are involved, staff challenge the behaviour, somebody starts filming and there isn’t immediate police support available.

Suddenly, the member of staff isn’t just dealing with smoking or vaping. They are making decisions about communication, personal safety, whether to continue the interaction and when to seek support.

The same applies at a gateline.

Someone tailgating through a barrier or deliberately avoiding payment might initially seem like a simple enforcement issue. In reality, staff can find themselves dealing with arguments, intimidation, multiple people or someone who is determined to challenge their authority.

Then there are situations involving people under the influence.

I’ve seen examples where British Transport Police have dealt with someone on a train, but the train crew haven’t necessarily been given the information they need. That can leave a train manager dealing with behaviour they weren’t expecting, without knowing what has happened beforehand.

These situations are different, and there are many more that happen across transport, but they all have something in common.

The challenge isn’t always knowing the rule. It’s knowing how to respond when the situation around that rule starts to change. That is where practical preparation becomes important.

You can’t prepare for every situation. You can prepare people to respond.

No training session can predict every interaction someone might have on a train, at a station or at a gateline. Instead, preparation should give people a strong understanding of the principles they can draw on when something unexpected happens.

That means knowing how to communicate under pressure, recognise changes in behaviour, establish appropriate boundaries and use de-escalation techniques. It also means understanding personal safety, making appropriate decisions and recognising when the safest response is to step back and get support.

At IKON Training’s Conflict Resolution Training, these principles are explored through practical discussion, communication techniques, de-escalation and the procedural, environmental and legal responsibilities that sit around conflict.

For me, the most valuable part of that learning is not giving somebody a script. It’s helping them understand why a particular response might work, so they can apply that thinking when the situation doesn’t look exactly like the example they have practised.

That is also why scenarios can be so useful. A realistic situation gives people an opportunity to explore what they might say, what their role is, when they might change their approach and what support they might need.

The scenario might change. The underlying principles don’t have to.

Keeping the conversation on track

Most of the situations I’ve talked about here come from rail, because that’s where I spend most of my time. The wider lesson, though, isn’t limited to the railway.

Any public-facing transport environment can put people in situations where they need to manage difficult behaviour, enforce boundaries, make decisions under pressure and sometimes deal with people who are unpredictable.

You can’t control what somebody else brings into an interaction, nor can you guarantee that every situation will follow the process exactly as intended.

What you can do is make sure your people understand how to respond, feel confident using those skills and know what support is available when things don’t go to plan.

That means looking beyond the training session too.

Good preparation should connect with the reality of the workplace, while good organisational support should continue when the incident is over. Reporting, reflection, management support and learning from what happened all have a part to play.

The latest figures tell us that violence and aggression remain a serious issue for the rail industry.

The people experiencing it remind us that the numbers are only one part of the story.

We can’t always control the interaction. We can influence how prepared and supported our people are when it happens.

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