Heathrow Express on track with fire-awareness training

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 42, Issue 5

A sub-surface fire-awareness e-learning course has been developed for Heathrow Express, the rapid rail link between Paddington Station and London’s main airport.

Heathrow Express has teamed up with Saffron Interactive, an e-learning,mobile and blended-learning company, to develop the course for Heathrow Express’s business partners and second-tier suppliers. They total around 700 people, in jobs ranging from cleaners to engineers.

The course will increase learners’ awareness of the risks of fire and their ability to respond appropriately in the event of a fire. The training will also include a focus on track awareness. A key part of the training will be to maintain learner engagement and make a clear link between the training and work at the Heathrow Express site.

The course will include bespoke graphics and animations, and realistic and relevant dilemmas to enable learners to recognize how their correctly raising the alarm in the event of a fire will save lives.

The Heathrow Express learning and development manager, Chris Knapp, said:“This is an important training requirement for Heathrow Express, and one that must be highly engaging to ensure learning transfer is effective to the target audience. I am sure our learners will be delighted at the convenience of being able to learn when and where they want, using technology that will enhance their learning experience.”

“We currently run approximately 46 sub-surface fire-awareness courses a year, on average each attended by 20 delegates. The new e-learning course will deliver the training in one hour with no travel required, bringing a direct business benefit of 2,760 hours a year. Over the projected five-year lifespan of the course, that is a total saving of more than 13,800 hours from delegates alone.”