Southern takes top prize at major awards

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Southern won the overall Rail Business of the Year award at the prestigious Rail Business Awards, held in London on Thursday night.

It also won the Environmental Innovation and Safety & Security Excellence awards.

On accepting the Rail Business of the Year award, Southern’s Managing Director Chris Burchell said:

“I am thrilled that the 4,000 people who work at Southern and Gatwick Express have been recognised for all the hard work they do. I’m also delighted that our innovative work in environmental and security excellence has paid dividends.”

Environmental Innovation

Southern’s best ever reduction in waste and emissions was achieved in 2010/11 with a series of innovative projects such as the use of solar panels, smart metering, intelligent lighting at stations, rainwater harvesting, increased recycling and regenerative braking.

The result of all this was a reduction in gas consumption of more than a third and a reduction in electricity consumption by more than 12%.

Southern’s team of Environmental Champions was recognised for its work in helping to achieve these results by advocating green innovation and good working practices to staff across the business, making sure each employee understands how they can make a positive difference.

Safety & Security Excellence

Southern’s Safer Travel Team comprising Rail Neighbourhood Officers and British Transport Police Officers were cited for their work in reducing crime and improving safety on the Southern network but the stand-out feature in this award was the use of Southern’s low-level crime fighting tool, Eyewitness.

This is an industry first scheme where staff and passengers using a smartphone can report incidences of low level crime such as anti-social behaviour as it happens to the Safer Travel Team, enabling it to respond quickly and effectively.

Southern was also highly commended for its ‘Making Every Journey Better’ staff engagement campaign in the Internal Communications Excellence category and in the Rolling Stock Excellence category for the refresh of its Class 313 trains.

After the ceremony, Mr Burchell added:

“We’ve come so close so many times to winning the overall title and now that we’ve won, we won’t be complacent. We’ll continue our work to improve every aspect of our service so that our passengers are the real winners.”

Steve Enright, Safety Director for Southern, will be speaking at the Rail Safety Summit this April in Loughborough. To book your place visit www.railsafetysummit.com

1 COMMENT

  1. I guess they didn´t get the On Time Award !! I left at 3:45PM Victoria yesterday and arrived at 9:15PM in Gatewick ! We have spent 4 hours and a half blocked at 10 miles of Gatwick ! Every one in the train has missed their flights … And they won´t pay for the rebooking !!

    If Southern won the overall Rail Business of the Year awar, I can´t imagine how are the other companie !

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