Why do clubs have all the best bouncers?, or it's about a "public service ethos"

I can't resist commenting on the proposed drinking ban on trains and buses, as reported in all the papers, such as (for a change) here in the Indie.

I guess I only very occasionally drink on a train and probably never on a bus. I'd rarely miss it, but I'd still resent losing my right to drink in these places. For some people, having a few cans on a train seems an important part of their weekend. Or I'm sure many commuters look forward to a G&T in the bar at the end of the day.

I guess the government is flying a kite, as I suppose there are some sensible things that can be done, such as designated lager coaches (much like quiet zones). At least all the piles of cans of Stella would be in one place.

What seems wrong with it, though, is, well, at least 3 kinds of things:

- where did this idea come from? What's happened to carefully thought-through policies, pros and cons researched by teams of expert (or at least well-paid) civil servants (or hired consultants)? Seems it's just been dreamed up by someone in no.10. Be warned: this is the sort of mode of government that led to such trigger-reaction triumphs as the Dangerous Dogs Act.

- I always resent my choices being constrained because of a problem caused by a small minority. It always seems easiest for people in authority to come up with a solution that involves telling everyone what to do. It must satisfy a deep psychological desire. Every time I fly I'm reminded of the daft ban on sharp instruments. And if you do have something in your bag there's no way to keep it - why not have some padded envelopes and stamps available at the airport so you can post it to yourself? No, that would be customer service, not authority over other people.

- and this leads on to the main problem with this idea. It misses the point entirely. Before punishing the innocent perhaps someone should think about what's going on on the trains and buses. Here's what I observe on my travels: the purpose of the staff on trains has subtly changed over the years since privatisation so that they are there to protect the interests of the company and not those of the passengers. Back in the good old days, the ticket-collectors (guards?) would, for example, tell people to keep their feet off the seats. They don't any more.

Or take another example: I was on a train back from a football match in Southampton a few weeks ago. There were some fans (away fans, as it happens) shouting and swearing and clearly upsetting other passengers. We were eventually delayed while police were called. Was this because the guard told them to stop swearing and they refused? No, it's because one lad was travelling on a child's ticket. Never mind that there were barriers with staff watching and police in attendance at Southampton station where he should have been challenged. The guard decided to tell him to get off at the next station. Which was never going to happen. He swore and threatened her and the whole train ended up delayed. None of this was about the safety or comfort of other passengers on the train.

Later on the KX to Cambridge leg of the same journey, there was a security guard following the ticket-collector down the train - about a foot behind. I found this quite comical: the only person whose safety mattered seemed to be the ticket-collector.

And all the notices about prosecuting attacks on the staff. It's all "them and us".

Let's cut to the chase: this doesn't happen on planes, it doesn't happen in clubs. In both cases, the culture is different, but the operators take responsibility for their customers' security. Nightclubs don't stay in business long if there's trouble inside (outside is a different matter). What's happened on the railways, largely as a result, I believe of privatisation - let's be charitable to the incompetent Major government, as an unintended consequence - is that the operators' responsibilities have gradually eroded. Stephen Byers put his finger on it in this article in the Guardian: commenting on the renationalisation of Railtrack he notes that among the benefits: "perhaps most importantly the ethos of public service now runs through the very core of Network Rail."

So, there used to be an implicit responsibility on the British Rail to maintain order. Perhaps, before punishing the entire travelling public, and imposing new restrictions, the government should think about reimposing on the rail companies - I guess explicitly, with financial penalties for non-compliance - the responsibility for keeping order on the trains. If they just try to ban drinking, the result will simply be more delays like I experienced when a small minority flout the ban, while the police are called to deal with the problem.

Effective journey time

Serious title: serious post. This should be the concept by which public transport is assessed.

I've been to London twice this weekend to visit the London Film Festival (I can recommend "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang" coming to a cinema near you shortly, by the way). The journeys on both Friday and Saturday were relatively smooth, with all the trains overcrowded but not to the point where no seats were available. I even found, after running to the station on Saturday morning, that there were no long queues to get tickets ahead of the 12:01, because there were 4, yes 4 (this must be a record!), ticket-sellers around in the station foyer, in addition to the ticket desks. I was pleased about that, particularly since, of course, the fast trains at xx:15 and xx:45 are not running at weekends for another couple of months. A 1/2 hour delay through missing the 12:01, on top of the extra journey time of nearly 1/2 hour would have screwed up the day. As it was we ate our sandwiches romantically on a bench in Green Park!

And the trains even seemed a little cleaner than last weekend, though not such that I'd repeat the mistake I made then of putting my jacket on the floor (it's still unseasonably mild). I'm still picking bits off it. I observed that if, as a teenager, I'd left my bedroom in the state the train was in last night, my mother would have given me a lecture on how to clean it properly. Makes you wonder what the so-called professionals are doing. (And why are the trains carpeted any way? - lino, anybody?).

This is not to say the service is even acceptable, though. This weekend an unacceptable service has been running relatively smoothly, which is something, I suppose. There are fundamental problems. I started thinking about some of these on Friday when I found myself leaving the house at 15:27, to meet my better half at Waterloo at 17:27. As I noted in my posting: "Death by 1000 cuts...", to meet this train means I have to catch the 15:45, since the 16:15 does not arrive at 17:05 sufficiently reliably (the service billed as 45 minutes is really 50, which doesn't help). As I was leaving precisely 2 hours before I had to get to Waterloo, I realised that I therefore faced an effective journey time of 2 hours, that is, 120 minutes, though I would only be travelling for about 80 minutes (10 minute walk to station, 50 on train, 15 on tube, 5 walking in Waterloo and King's Cross). What happened to the other 40 minutes?

Of course, the bulk of them (32 in this case) are because I arrive at Waterloo at 16:55 when I don't want to be there until 17:27. I repeat: this is partly because I can't trust wagn to be punctual on the 16:15. In the real world, if I can't trust the trains to run on time, I have to waste my own time on every journey, to be sure of making my own appointment. It's not just the 5 minutes lost on the days the train is late, the time lost every day in case the train is late is also important.

I also lose time because the services are 1/2 hourly. If they ran every 15 minutes, I would save 15 minutes straight away. Every 20 minutes and it would be 10 minutes saved. In the real world, the journey time is important, but, since most journeys involve either leaving somewhere or getting somewhere at a particular time, the effective journey time also depends on the frequency of services.

This becomes even more important in the evening, when trains from King's Cross to Cambridge are astonishingly infrequent. More on this another time, but one wonders what wagn's managers are thinking, as the lack of frequency of services back from London is a real disincentive to people going down for the evening. This must be costing them a lot of business.

The attentive reader will realise that there are another 8 minutes to account for. Why did I leave the house at 15:27, for a 10 minute walk for the 15:45 train (and this was cutting it fine). Well, the first point is that I walk. I could cycle, but I don't. (So actually I should add another 5 minutes wasted, making it 45 minutes in all). The reason I don't cycle is that there is no room to chain a bicycle at the station. The racks (many uncovered, too) are always full. Why is a mystery. I can only suppose they are poorly managed and procedures to remove abandoned bicycles are ineffective. A simple solution would be to turn some of the vast carpark over to bicycles. You could probably get 10 bikes in 1 carpark space. If even 1 in 10 drivers was encouraged to cycle as a result, this would add no more pressure on the carpark!

So, back to the 8 minutes. This is all simply because I cannot trust wagn (or whoever operates the station) to sell me a ticket promptly. Often there are queues, often the ticket-machines are out of action (more machines might be an idea). Again, this means I have to arrive early every time.

And this was still cutting it fine. I like having coffee on the train, but I can't be sure there'll be a coffee trolley (and don't even get any information as to whether or not there will be one). So I have to get to the station in time to buy one.

OK, a bit long-winded, but see how all these little problems add up to long effective journey times. And this is at a good time of day. Wait until I get on to the evening service! (I was going to say "late evening", but wagn's idea of late and mine are 2 different things). And I haven't even mentioned the stress all this causes!!

Anyone for sitting on the roof?

I nearly forgot: Monday's ES also mentioned this report from the Corporation of London, which you can read if you want (many graphs), but it was summed up nicely in one paragraph by the Standard: It "predicts the number of passengers using the Underground and railways in London will rise by 24% by 2016." And their editorial was headed: "We need Crossrail". Indeed. And quite a bit more investment, or there won't even be standing room.

Standing room only!

I bought the Times yesterday just for one article, the proposal by a new consortium, "Grand Central" to start a new railway service from King's Cross to the north: "If you can't find a seat, have a refund". (And I was so excited I forgot they were giving the paper away free at the London Film Festival venue I was travelling to). The market works its magic! And doesn't competition work: "GNER, which is lobbying MPs in an effort to deny Grand Central access to the network, defended its policy of refusing to give any refund to passengers who had to stand." Two outrageous actions in one sentence.

I travel to Newcastle regularly, and getting there is a big problem. The cheapest way to go these days is by easyJet from Stansted, which means you have to put up with all the arsey, time-wasting rituals flying involves these days, destroy the environment and suffer the dehydration and other (I suspect underestimated) damaging health effects resulting from sudden (unnecessary) changes in air-pressure. In short, I'd rather go by train. But as I don't happen to organise my life 6 weeks ahead (when the affordable tickets are rapidly sold) and I don't have money to throw away, I now usually fly.

As an aside, it says something about our societal values that GNER's pricing policy is even legal. We put the right to make arbitrary profits over fairness. And we even allow monopoly providers to do this! Why should someone pay a fraction of the price of someone else simply because they book early? It's the same product. They don't do this at restaurants! If I turn up on the day why should I pay an exorbitant fare? It's not as if they attach another carriage just for me.

Anyway, back to overcrowding: lots of people were standing on the 11:01 from Cambridge to London on Saturday morning as noted in my previous entry - because adequate replacement services were not laid on during engineering works - and, I now report, some people were also standing, as far as Stevenage, on the 22:51 from King's Cross to Cambridge last night. This is hardly a peak time, so the overcrowding is totally unjustifiable. It was simply because wagn chose to run this service with just 4 carriages. Presumably this saves them a small amount, but at a cost which is borne by their customers.

You can tell that wagn (and GNER and many others) are getting away with daylight robbery here, simply because Grand Central can so easily cause consternation by proposing to do something different. Competition is definitely part of the solution to the problems on the railways. But the industry has to be structured so that competition works. More about this another time.

If we really want to control the behaviour of the train operators, though, we will also need to prevent them pushing costs onto the customer. In some cases, as noted in my previous entry, these costs are not obvious, they're drip by drip deterioration of the service. In the case of overcrowding, though, the problem is simple. Grand Central's proposal to charge a half-fare for standers (that is the same as the fare for over 60s, incidentally, who for some reason we are all supposedly happy to subsidise, however well off they are, even if they're civil servants picking up their fat final-salary pensions before the rest of us can retire - hmm, please don't take this personally - in any case, I digress) still means they will make money from these passengers. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I suggest that what we want to do is to incentivise the rail providers to provide sufficient capacity to meet demand. I suggest we will never do this by allowing them to make a profit from people who have to stand: that is, people who, by buying a ticket, have clearly shown they are prepared to pay to travel. If we want seats provided, we have to punish the rail operators for not providing them: passengers who have to stand should have their fare refunded plus a premium of (say) half their fare. Direct financial penalties (costs) such as this are the only language such organisations understand. Grand Central's proposition is welcome, but the fact that it is such an improvement shows just how bad the situation is.

Incidentally, Andrew Gilligan wrote a good piece "Corporate fat cats who get billions in benefits" in Monday's Evening Standard. Unfortunately it's not online (anything to do with the Evening Standard being another monopoly provider perhaps? - and I guess disgraced journalists can't be choosers). Anyway, he noted what soft contracts tube, rail and other providers have managed to achieve. He ends by saying: "The private sector has been enjoying the equivalent of unlimited incapacity benefit for too long. Time, perhaps, for some tough love." I wholeheartedly agree, and I hope the Labour government can overcome its predisposition to try to bring the network back under state control (it's too late and too expensive to do more than they have with Railtrack, and I suspect would not solve the problems anyway, now - we are where we are), and instead manage these providers properly. If they don't, I dread the Tories getting back in, as they'll just let their friends in these companies get away with it even more. I'd venture an opinion on the Lib Dems as well, if I had any kind of clue what they stand for.

I could walk 500 miles...

The Proclaimers can still get the crowd going, as they showed at the Cambridge Folk Festival this summer.

3 out of 4 ain't bad: I went to London on Friday and Saturday. All 4 trains were punctual (the 15:15 Cambridge - 16:03 KX on Friday), and on both evenings the 23:15 KX - 00:13 Cambridge trains ran on time. The only notably unpleasant journey was the 11:01 Cambridge - 12:13 KX. This is what wagn put us through on Saturday morning:
- 3 of the 4 ticket machines were not working. As usual, the 3 credit card machines were out of order, but no-one had bothered even to put a sign, so everyone was trying to use them and finding nothing was happening. It occurs to me that perhaps there is some institutional unwillingness to move customers on to buying their tickets from machines. After all there might be fewer jobs. My partner pointed out that it would be worth keeping an IT person on the station. I pointed out that it would be worth having SEVERAL there : if there is a queue for hours, then the time wasted over that time is the time the queue exists multiplied by the average number of people in the queue!! More on this another time.
- we'd arrived to try to get the 10:45 to London. My stress-level while queuing (after 10 minutes we managed to buy tickets by 10:40, so would have been OK) evaporated somewhat when I realised that in fact there was no 10:45. The fast (~50 mins) trains from Cambridge to London are not running at weekends between mid-September and mid-December. What have wagn done in terms of replacement? Slightly slower trains at the same time (taking the "Hatfield loop"). No, no problem, we can all just jam onto the stopping services at 11:01 (1 hr 15 mins) and 11:31 (1hr 9 mins). So the 11:01 on Saturday morning was jam-packed, embarrassingly with many overseas students and other foreign visitors.
- and what's more, the heating in our part of the train was turned much too high. Is there some law of physics - omitted from my school curriculum - that means thermostats do not work on trains?

This is turning into an epic, but what I wanted to write about was wagn's habit, which seems new to me, of using the station as a marshalling yard. So not only did both trains arrive at platforms 9 and 10 at KX, a long walk to the underground entrance in the main foyer (can we have a tunnel, please, ... with moving walkway - having an "Oliver!" moment here: "you want more? MORE?"), we also had to walk by 4 carriages that were just left there all day. I timed this walk at over 1 minute on Saturday morning. So if just 1000 people have to walk past the carriages left on a platform, over 1000 person-minutes are lost. That is, over 16 hours. And the real number is probably much higher. So, looking at the system as a whole, it would be worth employing 2 people for an entire day to move these carriages! But wagn don't see the whole picture. They just steal this time from the travelling public and hope they don't notice. Well, I've begun to notice, as what with queuing for tickets, cuts and slower services, and this sort of casual inconveniencing, my journeys are taking longer and longer.

Death by 1000 cuts (in quality of service)

I'm going to London this evening to meet my better half at Waterloo off the Eurostar, due in (and almost always is, sometimes even a few minutes early) at 17:27. Now, I should have the option of catching the 16:15 from Cambridge, scheduled to arrive at 17:05. This should be plenty of time to get to Waterloo in time to meet the Eurostar. Except that the train rarely arrives at 17:05. It's always just a few minutes late. Last week, by the time I arrived at Waterloo my beloved was wandering around (and wondering where I was, mobiles being ineffective). If you don't actually get there on time it defeats the object of meeting someone, doesn't it? We may as well have met at Belgo's later on.

Now, I understand (and will research) that a few minutes delay (up to 5 is it?) doesn't count as late as far as wagn's service level monitoring goes. Well, I'm sorry, if I'm trying to get to Waterloo to meet the Eurostar, 22 minutes is reasonably comfortable, but 17 minutes is a rush and requires the tube system to be at the top of it's game.

So this afternoon I have to make sure I catch the 15:45 from Cambridge - adding a full 1/2 hour to my effective journey time.

I assume that wagn is subject to penalty if it fails to meet certain standards of punctuality. I'd really like to know exactly what the terms are, 'cos I bet (this is what I understand from press reports) it's all based on thresholds, e.g. they only get "fined" if more than (say) 10% of trains are more than (say) 5 minutes late. This, of course, means that they can get away with 9.999% of their trains can be more than 5 minutes late and the other 90.001% can be 4 minutes and 59 seconds late.

What needs to happen is that the arrival time of every train needs to be recorded, and sufficient compensation paid - ideally not as a "fine", but direct to the passengers (who are the injured parties after all) on all trains that are late - to ensure that wagn and all the other rail operators have enough incentive to make sure their services run to the timetable.

I'll report on my time of arrival this evening.

On a different note there was an accident somewhere on the King's Cross to King's Lynn line (which serves Cambridge, of course) yesterday (bad week on this line). Apparently a train hit a tractor on a level crossing. Sadly, the tractor driver was killed. Can more be done to avoid this happening again?

Disruption last night (Monday 18th Oct)

I actually wrote this entry 24 hours ago, but owing to some kind of problem with blogger, which has now cleared, I was unable to post until now. Lucky I saved what I had written...

This incident was the "final straw", prompting me to start this blog, though how much blame should actually go to wagn or the rail operators in general is unclear. My evening was completely screwed up, as I had to wait in for a guest I was expecting. She should have arrived soon after 8pm, having come from Brussels on the Eurostar (now there's a half-decent service - though not perfect) arriving at Waterloo at about 6:30. With strict instructions to take the Bakerloo line from Waterloo to Oxford Circus, joining a carriage near the middle of the train, from where she should, on disembarking at Oxford Circus, be able to walk 20 yards through a tunnel to the Victoria line platform to board another tube to King's Cross. 20 minutes, tops, Eurostar to KX mainline (& it also works in reverse). Sometimes the Victoria and Bakerloo line trains can even get synchronised at Oxford Circus, so you can nip through the tunnel and hop on the next tube just before it leaves. See how useful this site can be? But I digress.

My guest finally arrived around 11pm, a good 2 1/2 hours late. Naturally I wanted to know what happened. She'd arrived at King's Cross to find the Cambridge service delayed, and of course gone to the information desk to ask how long she would have to wait. He advised that "it would depend how long it took them to clear up the blood and bone". She's mentioned this several times so I expect those are pretty close to the actual words spoken. How professional is that? First, it was unnecessarily alarmist. She mentioned it to her husband - she happens to come from peaceful Estonia - who, no doubt wondering what violent country she was visiting (remember July 7th?), and, like her, envisaging mass carnage, said something like: "Thank God, you're alive". Second, as I realised when I heard all this, what had actually happened was a regular occurrence, i.e. a "fatality on the line", usually a suicide. I confirmed this later at the information section on the useful national railway site, on the cleared service bulletin list:

-------------
THIS INCIDENT HAS BEEN CLEARED
Fatality on the line at Hadley Wood, between Stevenage and London
Kings Cross / Moorgate

Time Reported: 19:32
Route Affected: All services to and from London Kings Cross and Moorgate
TOC/s Affected: GNER, Hull Trains, Wagn
Description: Train services between Stevenage and London Kings Cross
(GNER & Hull Trains), and Stevenage and Moorgate (WAGN) are being
disrupted due to a fatality on the line at Hadley Wood. Short notice
alterations, cancellations and delays can be expected. There is
currently no estimate for normal services to resume
Updates: 20:41 Train services have now resumed through Hadley Wood
with ongoing delays
Time reported cleared: 22:10
-------------

This is so regular an occurrence (I was held up by "a fatality on the line" a few weeks ago, on one of my typically eventful rail journeys to watch Southampton FC), that there are procedures for dealing with it. I know this because there was a programme on the BBC about the poor bastards who have to deal with these incidents. An hour's delay should be caused. So what KX Information should have said was something like: "Services should get back to normal in an hour." He might also have discussed with her the option of going to Liverpool Street, although this would probably not have been worth doing (KX to Liverpool Street by tube takes forever, it seems to me - though maybe I should time it sometime! - and the Liverpool Street services to Cambridge take longer).

It's still a mystery to me why my guest was 2 1/2 hours rather than just one hour late. I assume that trains were all stuck behind each other. What she's also told me is that the train she'd been trying to catch (I was expecting her to get the 19:15, but if the of the incident - 19:32 - above, is correct, she must have already been delayed and been trying to get the 19:45) showed as DELAYED on the departure board for some time. As soon as it stopped saying DELAYED she went to the platform to find it had already gone! So poor information provision played a part.

I'm of the view that we don't need more staff on the network or even at the station - since they cost money - just to deploy them more efficiently (no doubt I'll have more to say on this another time), but I can't help noting that wagn have started employing huge numbers of ticket-inspectors on trains. Shame they are not trying to help their customers with the same enthusiasm.

The 19:45(?) was probably over-crowded by the time it left, anyway. Running trains full (or from about 17:00 to about 19:00, over-full) may be efficient for wagn, but amplifies the effect of any disruption to the service.

It may also have been that my guest took a stopping train to Cambridge rather than a fast train en route to King's Lynn. The platform level signs at King's Cross are unforgiving to anyone unfamiliar with the service. It's not easy to work out which is the fastest train to Cambridge, for example. And unlike everywhere else in the world our train information displays never mention destination times.

So the train operators may be (moderately) happy that they apparently cleared the problem in 1 hr, 9 minutes (19:32 - 20:41 in the report above). Their target for getting services going again, is, I believe 1 hour (I will try to confirm this some time). But the wait I experienced for my guest was considerably more. It's time the rail operators started focusing on the customer experience, not internal targets of no relevance to customers.

Why this blog?

I've started a more general blog, relating my personal experience to the political, economic, ideological and environmental mess we have created in the UK (and worldwide - yes, if it's not there already, it's coming to you soon!) - and generally pontificating on such issues. A few days ago I started listing organisations which annoy me on a regular basis. The first to come to mind was "wagn", a division of National Express (yes, those guys who run the majority of the country's long distance bus/coach services), who operate the Cambridge to King's Cross rail service. The second was the RMT union, one of the country's few remaining militant trade unions. Both regularly disrupt my travel plans.

I don't commute to London every day, though may do so in the future. I use the service probably 2 or 3 times a week, but also rely on it indirectly when it is used by people coming to visit or meet me. Even for myself, though, the service is an important part of my life, particularly as its failures can - and regularly do - screw up my plans. Yet it is run explicitly in the interests of wagn - no doubt at a healthy profit - with considerable influence by the unionised workforce. We, the travelling public pay for the service, yet have very little control over it.

I've now realised that there is so much wrong - just with the rail service from Cambridge to London - that a dedicated blog is called for. And I was inspired by this blog about the London Underground. I don't intend to restrict myself just to the Cambridge - London experience. Other public transport journeys and general issues will also be covered, though the Cambridge to London service will be the focus. Enjoy. Share your experiences (add comments or contact me to become a regular contributor). Get angry. Then calm down and get even! Do something about it: make our lives better.