Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps are being taken to ensure safety on Northern Rail and TransPennine Express trains running driver-only operations.

There are currently no services on either the TransPennine Express (TPE) or Northern franchises that use driver only operation (DOO). In the consultation on the future of these franchises, which concluded on 28^th August, we stated that: "on the Northern franchise, we expect to require bidders to set out how DOO may be introduced onto suitable services. On TPE, this will be left at bidders' discretion." Driver only operation is a safe method that is already the working practice on around 30% of existing franchise services (including for instance many commuter services in London and Glasgow).