Abellio London Bus has adopted new fingerprint-based drug testing technology for staff.
The operator will use the portable Intelligent Fingerprinting drug screening system along with alcohol testing for its 2,100 drivers and 200 other safety-critical employees.
Previously Abellio used urine-based testing, the challenges of which include observed sample collection, the requirement for gender-specific testing staff and specially-prepared collection areas.
Fingerprint-based testing is non-invasive, quicker and more dignified.
Lorna Murphy, Operations Director at Abellio, says: “We found that our existing urine-based drug test was both inconvenient and slow.
“The Intelligent Fingerprinting system directly addresses these issues for Abellio, making the drug screening process much easier, less intrusive for our staff, and also allowing us to test a lot more of our employees, significantly improving our risk management processes.”
The union-approved test detects substances in minute amounts of sweat in a person's fingerprint. It's particularly suitable for workplace drug testing because, unlike urine testing, which can show a positive result for drugs taken several days ago, its shorter 'window of detection' usually indicates drugs were taken in the period just before a shift.
