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The Transport Secretary has ruled out introducing airport-style security at train stations after a mass stabbing at the weekend. Heidi Alexander said security arrangements will be reviewed and that more money is being invested in CCTV. She also said the public can expect to see an increased visibility of police on patrol in mainline stations over the coming days. Ten people were taken to hospital on Saturday after a knife attacker targeted passengers on a busy train from Doncaster to London. A "heroic" railway worker is still fighting for his life. Asked about calls for luggage scanners to be brought in at railway stations, Ms Alexander said she did not think it was the "right solution" at the moment. She said she didn't want the appalling attack to be allowed to change the lives and convenience of passengers going about their lives in Britain. Asked about luggage scanners, she told BBC Breakfast: "So we do have that sort of set up at St Pancras, for the Eurostar, but that is obviously more akin to an airport-style departure arrangement there. "We have got thousands of stations on our rail network in the UK. If you think about your local stations, it's probably got multiple entrances, it will have multiple platforms... This appalling attack cannot be allowed to change the way that the British public live their lives on a daily basis. So we need to think about the convenience to passengers in stations. "We obviously have to put appropriate security in place and that is why we will be improving the CCTV in stations so that the BTP - the British Transport Police - can remotely access the camera footage that is being recorded in stations. "I think those steps are the sort of proportionate steps that the British public will want the Government to take but at the moment that type of airport scanning technology, I don't think, is the right solution for stations in the UK." Ms Alexander emphasised that incidents like Saturday's knife attack are "very, very rare" on railways. "I would also want to reassure your listeners that, while it won't have felt this way for those people that were on the train on Saturday night, our rail network in the UK is a low crime environment," she said. "So for every one million passenger journeys that are done, just 27 crimes are committed. Now one crime is always going to be one crime too many and of course we want to get those numbers down, but we do have a dedicated police force - the British Transport Police - that operate on the railway and they work very closely with local police forces as well to make sure that the travelling public are safe." Speaking more generally about security on trains, she added: "We have increased the visible patrols that British Transport Police will be doing in mainline stations over the coming days because I do understand that people will want to feel assured following what happened on Saturday night. Thankfully, incidents like this on the public transport network are very, very rare. "We are investing in improved CCTV in stations and the Home Office will soon be launching a consultation on more facial recognition technology , which could be deployed in stations as well. We take the safety of the travelling public incredibly seriously. We will review security arrangements and I can assure your viewers that we will respond to any outcomes of those reviews in a practical way, swiftly, and in a proportional way."
