Mitie awarded £6 million security contract by South Western Railway

Operating over 1,500 services each weekday across the network, South Western Railway employs upwards of 5,000 members of staff and provides commuter inter-urban, regional and long distance services to passengers. The company is a joint venture between First Group and the MTR Corporation from Hong Kong.

FirstGroup is a leading private sector provider of transport services. With £4.8 billion in revenue and 30,000 employees on the payroll, the business transported more than 1.8 million passengers per day in 2022-2023.

Part of the First Group alongside First Bus, First Rail is the UK’s largest rail operator and runs three rail contracts on behalf of the Department for Transport – namely South Western Railway, Avanti West Coast and the Great Western Railway – and two open access services, specifically Hull Trains and Lumo.

In addition to Avanti services, the West Coast Partnership also includes the ‘shadow operator’ for future high-speed rail services which will design, develop and mobilise operations for the new line working with HS2 Ltd and the Department for Transport.

Notably, First Rail also operates the London Trams network on behalf of Transport for London, carrying around 21 million passengers each year.  

Security detail

In addition to keeping 14 sites – including stations, depots and Security Control Centres – secure, Mitie’s trained and Security Industry Authority-licensed security officers will also provide reassurance and wellness checks for passengers travelling on South Western Railway’s trains. With South Western Railway running 1,500 journeys each day, these checks will be key to quickly identifying and responding to any unusual behaviour or unattended items.

The security contract will also see Mitie bring its intelligence-led approach to the fore by fully digitising South Western Railway’s security incident reporting processes for the first time, with the introduction of the company’s Merlin 24/7 software. Security officers will be able to log detailed information on incidents through a hand-held device, streamlining the reporting process.

South Western Railway will also have a dedicated dashboard on the platform, providing security teams with real-time intelligence on threat levels across the rail operator’s estate at their fingertips. That intelligence is based on insight and trend analysis gathered from incident reports.

Taking this one step further, and using open-source data gathering, Mitie’s analysts based at its Intelligence Hub will provide South Western Railway security teams with updates on potential threats (such as large public events, protests and crime increases in specific local areas) across the rail operator’s estate. Mitie’s team will be able to identify ‘hotspots’ and make intelligence-led decisions about the number of security officers required to be present at different sites on different days.  

Intelligence-led approach

Jason Towse, managing director of the Business Services division at Mitie, explained: “We’re extremely pleased to have been awarded this new contract with South Western Railway, which will serve to build on our experience and expertise in the rail industry. We look forward to bringing our intelligence-led approach to security to the forefront and assisting with the creation of a safe and secure environment for the thousands of passengers travelling with South Western Railway each day.”

Daniel O’Riordan, head of safety and security assurance for South Western Railway, responded: “At South Western Railway, the safety and security of all colleagues and customers is our priority. This is a momentous occasion as we enter into partnership with a new security services provider.”

O’Riordan concluded: “We’re delighted to welcome Mitie to the South Western Railway community and look forward to working with the company. We’re certain that Mitie’s innovative digital and intelligence-led solutions will help us to make our network a safer and more secure place for everyone who uses it.”

*Further information is available online at www.mitie.com