Complains about new communication standards, Dutch railways

This article does not voice my position about the topic, but is a rough translation of a Dutch news article.

The new rules of communication for all Dutch train service leaders and engineers are resulting in unsafe situations, claim those on which the new rules apply.
The train service leaders (something tells me I am using the wrong translation for that word) in the city of Utrecht have all signed a letter send to ProRail, the organization responsible for maintaining and managing most of the Dutch tracks.

ProRail setup these new rules last year to enhance the communication.

So... What are the main difference between how it used to be and how it is today?
1: Previously, track 12c was pronounced "track twelve C" (well, the Dutch equivalent of course). The new rules state that track 12c now has to be pronounced "track one two Charly"; in other words: Call the numbers individually and use the NATO alphabet for letters.
2: The end of every part of the communication has to be finished with "over". Remember the good old walky-talky days? Today they all use telephones, but still the "one at a time" broadcasting standard has been re-introduced.

So far the difference is just silly and getting used to, but apparently not everyone is getting used to the new standard of communication at the same speed.
The article mentions a specific situation in which an ambulance was called in and positioned themselves between track 1 and 2 (one and two), waiting for the train to arrive, but they should have been send to track 12 (twelve).

The NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen, "Dutch Railways") and ProRail reject the criticism. "These rules follow the European guidelines for clear communication with and between trains." Mainly the older employees seems to be having problems getting used to the new formal way of communicating.

Source: Article in newspaper "de Volkskrant" (in Dutch, sorry)

Hi oknotsen and everybody
I am afraid this is a problem which has come about due to the European Union freedom of movement regulations. As you probably know under those regulations nationals from any country within the European Union have a right to work in any other country within the European Union. There have been many arguments in recent years as to whether in times of mass unemployment those regulations are really appropriate.

However, at the present time freedom of movement throughout the European Union is taking place. The big problem when it comes to workplaces is that there is no one common language spoken throughout Europe. Therefore in any workplace various languages may be spoken among various groups of employees. It is true to say that immigrant workers will in the main make every effort to learn the national language of the country they are working in, but it is never their first language and therefore misunderstandings with other nationals very often occur.

A recent report compiled by the EU commission and circulated to industrial safety bodies advised that a considerable number of workplace accidents are taking place because of the above problem. Therefore, large employers are trying to bring about “standardised communication” especially where it affects workplace safety. Therefore,to take your example of platform twelve, that actual word may be not easily recognisable to a non-national, but the words one….two are more basic and therefore the thought must be that non-nationals will more easily bring the two numbers together, recognise what is meant by them and act on that.

Working in the field of industrial safety I would be the first to recognise that the above is not the perfect solution and therefore I advise without further comment. To illustrate the problems freedom of movement is causing, we recently did a safety audit at a very large distribution centre in southern England following several accidents and near misses. On investigation we found that there were six main groups of immigrant workers within the distribution centre. Therefore among a considerable number of changes we recommended to senior management was one of which advised that all safety notices should be written out in the six different languages prevalent within the distribution centre.

At considerable cost to the company this has now been done. As stated, we felt it was not the perfect solution by any means and if anyone’s got any better solutions believe me there are all to many of us in European industrial safety only too eager to listen, as it is a major problem .

Hope this helps
Bill

The use of the phonetic alphabet and the spelling out of individual numbers has been in use for safety critical communication on Network rail lines for sometime now .
It does take some time to get your head around it especially when you have to split a word up into separate phonetic letters . A few months and it becomes second nature .
I've been retired off the railway for over 3 years but I can still recite each letter .
The best part is when I want to spell out my surname via a phone call , I've lost track the amount of times the person at the other end has gone quiet and then said sheepishly .... Are you a police officer ?? :hehe:

An old headcode would of been stated as " six b seventy two"
now becomes
" Six Bravo Seven two" .

On the phone to signalman "6B72 for Bescot stood at New street 37 signal"
Becomes:
driver of six bravo seven two currently stood at November Sierra three seven signal for Bescot .