Do railway mobile phones have special priority?

[arabianights]

One of the annoying things about major travel disruption is that by definition it affects many people and consequently mobile network usage hugely increases.

Just wondering if there is any "priority" given to staff mobile phones in trying to connect to the mobile networks, I believe that this is both technically possible and given to the emergency services, it would make sense to me it was also given to rail staff - anyone know?

 

[scott118]

No priority given. Besides, rail staff are always the last to get any info..unless you are directly involved within the said 'incident', control are too busy arranging other details, such as rail replacement, evacuations, isolations etc, to contact all other trains in the effected area, hence why social media, is updated sooner by those upon the rail disrupted network, than staff, to get messages about the current delay.

 

[ralphchadkirk]

No, MTPAS (previously ACCOLC) is only available to category 1 or 2 responders, and is only activated on the authority of the police gold commander, and only used in the case of a major incident where the mobile cell towers nearest would be overwhelmed.

Network Rail and TOCs are category 2 responders, and it is likely that they have some MTPAS enabled SIM cards, but these would only be used in the case of a major incident for communication between certain managers and commanders - not just for day to day disruption.

 

[LowLevel]

We have GSMR radios on trains which helps. Ours are set up so you can do anything from red button the signaller to stop the job to call the train crew supervisor etc. Even as a guard I use it most days for anything routine like reporting unit faults or talking to delays.

My company mobile seems to have pretty good general coverage but nowt special, the only really benefit over my own phone being it's set up to be able to call internal railway phones and access things like the national rail internal knowledge base.