Seven machines will be used by Merseytravel employees

About 100 workers at Merseytravel can now use the automated external defibrillators (AEDs).

They can help increase survival rates for those who suffer heart failure.

Money from the British Heart Foundation has helped fund the training. The machines will be on ferries, tunnel police vehicles and in bus stations.

Paramedics from the Mersey Regional Ambulance Service trained the employees in the resuscitation techniques.

A total of seven machines have been placed on the travel network.

'Vital seconds'

Neil Scales, chief executive and director general of Merseytravel, said: "Merseytravel is the first passenger transport authority in the UK, outside London, to roll out defibrillators across all areas of its organisation.

"In the past our staff would have had to carry out basic first aid and call for an ambulance.

"Now they are fully trained to save vital seconds to help resuscitate heart attacks victims - seconds that could mean the difference between life and death."

The initiative forms part of the wider National Community Defibrillator Programme (NDP) that aims to place 130 AED machines in public places in Cheshire and Merseyside, over the next 12 months.