§ Mrs. DunwoodyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions if he will make a statement on the implementation of the commitment in the 1998 White Paper on the future of transport relating to the adoption by public transport operators of crime prevention strategies contained in Guidance on Public Transport-Guidelines for Operators; how many public transport operators have formally adopted this guidance; and if he will instruct the Strategic Rail Authority to make it a condition of future franchise contracts that operators must formally adopt these guidelines. [158835]
§ Mr. HillThese Guidelines have been widely distributed to transport operators, local authorities and other interested parties. As the Guidelines are not required to be implemented by the transport operators, we do not keep records on how many operators have adopted the Guidelines; nor do we have plans to make implementation mandatory. However, Local Transport Plans are required to address personal security issues in all modes and across the whole journey, and we will be undertaking a review of Local Transport Plans to see how local authorities have improved personal security.
On rail, there are no plans to include the Guidelines in replacement franchise contracts, although we would expect operators to be aware of them.