Openreach Rolls Out New Safety App to Help Protect UK Broadband Engineers

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today announced the launch of a new mobile safety app to help combat a surge in abuse and assaults on its UK telecoms engineers. Since April last year, there’s been around 700 incidents of either physical or verbal assaults and threats, including some cases where people have needed time off work to recover.

The sort of incidents involved here tend to vary and in the past we’ve heard of it covering everything from verbal abuse to threats with scissors, assault (e.g. being pushed down some stairs, punched or shaken off ladders), racism, spitting, swearing, homeowners preventing staff from leaving (i.e. barricading them inside homes or vans), as well as inappropriate or threatening behaviour toward female engineers etc.

The sadly growing problem (in the previous year the number of incidents was closer to 450) has already caused Openreach to trial panic alarms with some of their 27,000 employees (here) and they’ve now evolved that approach by launching a new app, created by Peoplesafe.

The app will help protect Openreach’s engineers and office-based staff in the event of safety incidents when they’re working alone, at height or just on their commute to and from home. The app, which has already been through a successful trial in the company’s Service Delivery unit, offers several features.

Features of Openreach’s New Engineer Safety App

• SOS and fall alarms connecting directly to a 24/7 control centre
• GPS tracking for emergency responders to pinpoint locations
• Instant two-way audio and direct police dispatch
• Commute monitoring and critical event alerts

Admittedly, it’s extremely sad that such an app is even needed, but it’s better to have it than not. The app will be installed on all devices carried by Openreach’s engineers, as well as being offered as an optional safety precaution for its office-based staff.

Adam Elsworth, Safety Director at Openreach, said:

“Nothing’s more important than the safety of our people and making sure everyone gets home each day safe and well. That’s why we’re constantly looking at ways to protect our people as they go about their work, whether that’s through training, PPE, specialist kit like climbing harnesses or new technologies.

“The Peoplesafe app gives our people an added layer of safety while on the job and particularly for many of our colleagues that work alone for long periods of the day. It also helps us to address an area we have less control: attacks by members of the public.”

Adrian, Openreach Engineer, explained:

“Recently I was working in the street to reconnect a vulnerable customer which involved a road closure, when a local resident furious at having to wait a short time started throwing traffic cones around and swearing. He got into his car drove along the pavement and then directly at me.

I was genuinely frightened for my safety, so I pressed the SOS button on the Peoplesafe app and thankfully the police arrived within minutes and diffused the situation, so I was able to continue work. It’s really reassuring to know that I can get help with just the press of a button.”

We should point out that this problem is by no means unique to Openreach, with engineers from other fixed line and mobile network operators also becoming subject to similar events. Some such cases do get reported to the police, although it’s unclear how many people have ever been prosecuted as a result.

Either way, the rise in abuse is incredibly disturbing, although it’s possible that some of this might be related to the fact that Openreach’s engineers are currently much more active and visible due to being in the peak phase of the operator’s national full fibre broadband roll-out.

Nevertheless, it’s important to remember that engineers are human beings too and only doing their jobs, so if somebody has a complaint then there are formal ways to raise it.