Well, I think we shall have to agree not to agree on this one! I can think of many situations where the observation of those on the platform has 'saved the day', so to speak.
Perhaps. But then my own experience is slightly at variance to that. Most of the times I've had door-related issues it has been at locations where platform staff are available to despatch. I've had people trapped in doors getting on or off the train (not always within my own sight due to curved platforms) and parents separated from their children by the train's closing doors.
With all the will in the world, a Driver with only a minimal view in either a fuzzy mirror or an array of small CCTV images, is going to find it harder to spot these things. As you will be only too aware, door incidents invariably occur at the last moment, and even once the doors have closed in some instances.
I have to ask, do you drive DOO services? I stand by my assertion that DOO equipment can provide a superior view of the doors compared to either looking back from the cab window and, in a number of cases, standing on the platform. They provide multiple views along the entire length of the train and actually help to show more detail than would otherwise be available from any other single vantage point. Even a mirror provides a view that is at least as good as looking back from the cab window and is superior because it is set back from the platform edge slightly and therefore provides a better viewing angle.
You mention the superior views afforded by CCTV; do you have an image of both inside and outside the train, at every single door?!
No, of course not. A typical 8 car DOO CCTV platform set up has 4 or 5 CCTV screens maximum. The Cl379s have one bodyside camera per coach giving 4, 8 or 12 pictures spread across 2 screens in the cab.
If you do, I would argue that there is simply too much to be observing all at once for you to ever be able to see everything to any worthwhile degree. If you have a view only of the inside or of the outside, then I fail to see how it is any more comprehensive than the view of a person observing from the platform?
See above.
I will say again, I have despatched myself using DOO CCTV on platforms and on the train, DOO mirrors, "look back" working, getting out on the platform by the cab and by going down to the despatchers vantage point at certain locations when staff have not been available. From all of these options I would rather use the platform monitors because, as I said, they give multiple viewpoints along the entire platform and a superior viewing angle compared to all the others. Indeed, I prefer to use platform monitors where available even when driving a Cl379 because the viewing angle is better (although this requires supreme precision with regard to the stop in order to secure a decent view out of the tiny side window).
I will maintain that DOO is a compromise, indeed you raise a good example of this when you mention those situations whereby a Driver must step onto the platform to carry out a check prior to dispatch. If your position for checking the doors are clear is a suitable point on the platform but you must then return to the cab to hit the buttons, how can you possibly be certain that the doors are in fact clear at the point they are closed?! You are effectively closing them 'blind' as you are not in your safe dispatch position when you are dispatching the train.
It's not worse than a platform despatcher or guard despatching from part way down a train. Can you look both ahead at the front portion as well as behind to the rear portion? Often times the despatcher turns his/her back on a significant part of the train in order to give me the bat and fails to see something happening behind them just at the last minute. However, as I'm watching for them I often see what's going on better than they can and will delay closing the doors until I'm satisfied that it's safe to do so. And I will say again that the majority of door-related incidents that I experience have been at staffed locations.
Besides, I have to be brutally honest and say that I think you're splitting hairs over this. Unless I can despatch myself from the platform and can get a good enough view of the entire train from directly by a cab with live door controls (even if it means opening up a middle cab) I won't use this method but go right to the back of the train and close up each coach one at a time using the coach end buttons.
Whilst we Guards will have the option of several door positions to work from, opting for the one which gives the best degree of safety, a DOO Driver with a knackered monitor has just his buttons on the desk. If I was seen by a Comp Manager closing my doors whilst looking the other way, I would fully expect a roasting. Under the safety gamble that is DOO however, this sort of thing flies nicely under the radar, the priority of course being to do as much as possible with the minimum of outlay. Sadly this is the nature of the safety compromise that will always come with a DOO operation. I remain sure that it is only the relatively very small amount of it that we have on our network which has kept the incident figures low all these years.
As I have already said, if a DOO driver like myself has a knackered monitor we will not simply shut up blind and hope for the best but use some other despatch method more appropriate to the location to ensure that our station duties are done correctly and safely. Don't forget, we're under EXACTLY the same pressures as guards and despatchers in this respect. Like guards, any DOO driver who simply releases the doors and counts to ten before closing them again and never taking a look back to see if it is safe to do so will get a right royal rollocking.
What I fully agree with you on is that most door incidents are the result of passengers' own actions!
Yup.
**EDIT**
Please try to understand that I'm not trying to champion DOO as a method of working. It is simply that the scarcity of facts surrounding this incident do not automatically suggest that the method of despatch was causal or even contributory. DOO requires additional support for the driver in terms of either platform equipment or on-train equipment, but that is all. Carried out properly, DOO despatch is no riskier than any other method of despatch. Indeed, a properly despatched DOO service is safer than a fully-manned service sloppily despatched by it's guard.
Bear in mind that I work DOO services and I understand that carrying out station duties safely and correctly is paramount to the job. We are not simply drivers but driver and guard all rolled up into one, and that means we have to demonstrate the same levels of competency as guards.
All that said, I would still prefer a guard and resist the idea of DOO spreading across the entire network. It does have certain safety issues that I have already gone on record to argue on this forum if you care to search back over the preceding months and years. I am a great champion of having guards on trains and there are many good persuasive arguments for keeping them there and even reinstating them where they have been removed. However, this isn't one of them.
To bring the thread back on-topic, so far there is nothing contained within the story as presented to suggest to me that DOO was contributory. This incident could have happened on any train anywhere, primarily because people do dumb things around trains.
O L Leigh