Network Rail and Southeastern use virtual reality in their Travel Safe Travel Smart railway-safety education programme in Kent. Headsets present trespassing and level-crossing misuse from a first-person perspective, helping pupils understand dangerous situations without entering them.
At the Margate centre, children from Year Five upwards combine VR with practical activities around real railway tracks in a controlled setting. The team also delivers school visits. These lessons support safer independent travel and responses to local trespass incidents.
Rail Safety Week documented related school outreach using VR in 2023, so the September 2026 announcement should not be treated as the original launch. RSSB’s December 2025 centre case study describes free 90-minute visits, quizzes, safety films and supervised station activities. It reports more than 2,300 participants in 2025 and over 5,000 since the centre began; these totals cover the whole programme and do not establish how many used VR.
