Minimum age of train drivers
In 2019, the Rail Delivery Group Train Driver Academy asked us to find out if it would be feasible to reduce the minimum age of train drivers from 20 to 18.
This would have multiple benefits for industry’s goal of having a younger, more diverse workforce. For example, it would:
- encourage more school leavers to take up train driving apprenticeships
- increase the number of people becoming a train driver as a first job and lower the average age of people in this role
- help address the skills gap associated with the older train driver workforce
- increase the diversity and size of the candidate pool.
Other countries around Europe already allow people as young as 18 to drive domestic trains. And they’re seeing the benefits associated with this. This work offers an opportunity for Great Britain to align its minimum age requirements and start to reap the rewards.
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Could it work?
To explore whether it would be possible to reduce the minimum age for train drivers in GB, we:
- did a literature review
- reviewed drivers’ tasks
- conducted interviews and site visits across several locations and transport industries.
We believe a reduction in the minimum age is possible. Experience, rather than age, is the better predictor of train driving performance. And skills like hazard perception, situational awareness, and decision making all improve with exposure to a certain task.
Importantly, we also found that existing risk control measures would remain useable in this population. These include training, safety systems, and competence management.
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What’s next?
We also explored how GB rail could improve competence management arrangements for drivers. Opportunities for improvement focused on how drivers could get the right experience over time in a controlled way. The study looked at how drivers could develop the skills necessary—both technical and non-technical—for safe train driving, regardless of age.
Those arrangements included:
- greater use of augmented reality
- hazard perception testing with a focus on situational awareness
- exposure to ‘riskier’ scenarios taking place in a controlled environment.
