Coping with crisis at Transport for London

TfL helps around 27 million people a day travel in London and routinely manages transport during major planned events. Well-honed operational contingency plans help keep London moving following sudden disruptions such as power failures, bad weather and the security alerts that have featured in London’s life for many years.

 

July 2005 was typically busy, with hundreds of thousands of extra visitors to the music event Live8, the Pride March and sporting events, and on 6th July, London celebrated its selection as host city for the 2012 Olympic Games.

 

The subsequent hours and days were to put TfL’s incident management and recovery, including communications, to one of its severest tests: On 7th July, as Londoners traveled into the city, three underground (tube) trains and one bus were targeted by terrorists who killed 56 people and injured countless others.

 

The 7th July: How the incident unfolded

• At about 08.50 in the morning, on Thursday 7th July, a large noise or explosion on a train at Liverpool Street is reported. Within minutes, the Metropolitan underground line confirms an explosion and the underground’s emergency command structure swings into action.
• At just before nine, reports are received of a train hitting the tunnel, smoke, and passengers leaving the train and walking down the tunnel toward Edgware Road station.
• By 09.15 all tube trains are brought into stations and employees evacuate the network. At the height of the rush hour, more than 200,000 people are on the tube – most are evacuated in an hour.
• Human instinct is to get as far away as possible, but employees, both on and off duty, run to the incidents to help.
• At 09:25, London’s police force, the Metropolitan Police, declare a major incident.
• At 09.47, a blast tears through a bus, killing 13 people, plus the bomber.
• By now, employees with access to TV/radio or the web face constant replaying of the scenes as the news services try to capture and understand the attacks and speculate on what might come next.
• Calls from home ask TfL employees if they’re okay – can they come home, out of danger?
• Employees worry about colleagues or relatives travelling or working near the explosions.
• Throughout the day, security alerts ripple through the mainline stations, on buses and the Docklands Light Railway and operators curtail or suspend services as a precaution.
• Though shocked and distressed, employees do what they are trained to do – help at the incidents, support colleagues and assess what transport can be run.
• Volunteers from TfL offices join operations staff at bus and tube stations and on the streets to give directions to people finding their way home across London.
• Teams work throughout the night at Aldgate, King’s Cross St Pancras, Edgware Road and Russell Square stations and in Tavistock square.
• Other staff organize train and bus services to be ready to run again. The next day, the transport network, apart from the sites directly affected, opens for passenger service.

 

The internal communication challenges
Although the media were free to speculate, the internal communication department had to be sure that information to employees was accurate and consistent.

 

We were limited in what we could communicate and how quickly, when employees wanted more frequent information. For example, information on casualties and the scene of an incident falls under police control – we rely upon confirmed information from them. The extent of casualties and the potential involvement of employees or their relatives was unclear, and messages needed to be sensitive to the possibility of very personal impact on employees.
Senior managers, who would normally clear major announcements, were dealing with the enormity of the incident. The press office, whose cleared lines we use for consistency, were dealing with very high numbers of interview bids, as well as managing media at the incident sites.

 

Some internal communicators were travelling to work as the explosions occurred. Luckily, an experienced member of the group internal communications team had arrived early and was able to implement the first messages.

 

What didn’t work
Operational contingency plans exist for most scenarios, but while the group and subsidiary companies’ internal communication teams routinely collaborate, and have a good relationship with human resources, we hadn’t faced this kind of incident as a working virtual team. There were some gaps and duplications in how we responded – quickly resolved, but unnecessary in hindsight.

 

The pressure on the internal telephone and computer networks meant some, thankfully isolated, system failures – staff in some areas didn’t receive all the updates sent by e-mail and felt isolated. We issued a request to minimize phone calls and e-mail to clear the way for operational and recovery use.

 

Employees called any “obvious” number for news. The HR call center and the 0800 buildings emergency recorded message line took high levels of calls. We quickly provided a script to HR with advice not to speculate and agreed with facilities management to turn the 0800 number into an incident update channel, mirroring our intranet and e-mail messages.

 

The internal communication culture at TfL
During any incident we help TfL:
• Keep employees informed – the facts, the impact upon services, action to take and information to help them do their jobs.
• Minimize the effect of speculation and provide employees with information consistent with that provided for customers and the media.
• Communicate appreciation of everyone’s efforts.
• Respond to employee feedback.

Internal communication is a devolved function – we need to achieve a balance of consistent TfL wide and local information. Group internal communications collaborates with our underground and surface transport counterparts, and with the press office, to join up internal and external messages.

 

News for our 20,000 employees is published on our intranet homepages and e-mailed to managers who use that information to inform employees with no access to a computer.

 

How we communicated the 7th July incident
Our first message to staff at 09.15 confirmed an incident on the underground and asked employees to avoid using the tube.

 

Service and incident status updates were published on average every 45 minutes throughout the day and simultaneously released to the media.

 

Advice to office staff to stay at work unless otherwise instructed was issued late that morning with the promise of an update by 14.00 hours advising when and how to get home.

 

At 14.00, we advised that work was still going on to restore services, with a promise to update at 15.00 hours.

 

Shortly afterwards we were first able to confirm the known facts about the impact of the explosions and following police clearance, to confirm fatalities, but not numbers or whether employees were affected.

 

Public messages of condolence and sympathy from our commissioner, managing directors and London’s mayor were issued, followed by messages from them to thank staff and contractors for being professional under extreme stress.

 

Turning the intranet homepage completely over to the incident, we published a resources page with links to vital phone numbers and processes and details of the London bombings relief fund (TfL volunteers collected over £100,000 on 14th July).

At 15.00 we advised how to get home and called for volunteers to give journey information to the public.

 

Our last message that evening gave a service update and repeated advice to Londoners to remain vigilant.

 

Communication after the initial attacks
Internal communication was characterized by transport service updates, news on progress of the recovery work on the tube, reassurance on precautions to safeguard customers and staff, calls for volunteers to give journey advice at the affected stations, reminders for vigilance, and information on TfL’s incident care team.

 

Invitations were published to sign the book of condolence and to observe the national two minutes’ silence on 14th July. We reviewed all business as usual messages for sensitivity before agreeing to communicate, feeding them back into the mix from 10th July.

 

A few external chain e-mails containing rumors on further events appeared, and we published advice not to pass them on except to a central contact.

 

Recognizing the human impact
Justifiably, the focus for messages of thanks was on front line employees who were very visibly and obviously involved. Backroom employees across TfL worked for days and nights to provide support services and messages needed to include recognition of their efforts.

 

In addition to the business related messages, we published hundreds of messages from the people affected on the 7th, and from individuals and organizations worldwide, praising employees for their professionalism and courage.

 

Underground staff shared their experiences on the intranet – this last was an entirely internal exercise, in deference to the privacy of the individuals concerned.

 

Messages from the mayor, the Queen, the prime minister and visits from the secretary of state for transport and members of the royal family were reported with further messages of appreciation from TfL’s senior team.

 

Commemorative issues of the staff magazines were published, and large posters made sure that operational employees could not miss the recognition and thanks from their management and the public.

 

Communication in the months that followed
During fall 2005, London Underground introduced an all-staff events program, addressing the magnitude of the events and acknowledging pride in the employees’ reaction and contribution to giving passengers their tube services again.

 

These events were aimed at heralding an era of renewed dialogue with employees on driving the business forward together.

 

Across TfL, special recognition events were held to honor those most directly involved in the events and the recovery.

 

In spring 2006, a team comprising communicators from all the TfL departments developed a plan to support the private and public memorial events to be held on 7th July 2006. The Mayor, TfL’s commissioner and senior team joined senior politicians to lay flowers at King’s Cross St Pancras, Edgware Road, Aldgate and Russell Square stations and at Tavistock Square where they unveiled commemorative plaques to remember all those killed or injured and their families.

 

How did the internal communication teams cope?
We had excellent internal contacts, an in-depth knowledge of the system, know-how based on past incidents and people experienced in dealing with crisis communication. We also had business recovery plans that, while not intended for this incident, provided support. The rest was strong team spirit and respect for our colleagues, some working in unimaginably distressing conditions.

 

Using the experience to improve our response
We run a lessons learned review after any incident. This time, we worked with the business continuity managers to establish internal communication firmly within the response plans process. Routine desktop exercises now involve internal communicators and communications department-wide exercises give the differing disciplines the chance to work together in an incident scenario.

 

In addition, HR has included the process and accountabilities for communicating in an emergency into the employee safety and wellbeing policy that is available to all employees.

 

Nothing can prepare you entirely for some events, but answering these questions, and filling any gaps they spotlight, could help you and your team feel better prepared.
• Do you have a clear role in business continuity planning?
• What are the business’ expectations of your services?
• How will you be involved when an incident occurs?
• Do you practice using desktop exercises or workshops and real “what if” scenarios?
• What are the scenarios that could affect your business?

The answers will depend on your business and the range of things that could happen.¹

None of us wants to imagine a crisis striking us – our colleagues, our customers or our business. If occasionally thinking the unthinkable can help us to react better, faster to help them, it’s worth imagining the worst that can happen.

 

The value provided by internal communication
Could our employees have gotten through the events without us? I’m sure they would have – I’ll never forget what they did to restore London’s transport in the face of an unknown threat and I’m proud to call them my colleagues. But should any business leave their employees to depend upon press releases to know what to do, or teams giving everything to deal with the incident to scrabble around for volunteers on their own – or leave the heart-warming messages of public support and pride unshared? I think not.

 

An organization can trust the internal communication team to look after the messages while they set us back onto our feet. This is how we bring value to an organization.

 

1.The full length version of Janet Croissant’s toolkit to test your department’s ability to cope with a high-level crisis can be found on the Internal Comms Hub.