Mike Brown
London Transport Commissioner MIKE BROWN reviews his five years leading London‘s “hidden heroes”.
MIKE BROWN, Commissioner of Transport for London, is stepping down after five years - just as the organisation he leads faces great challenges. He talks to PAUL CLIFTON about what went right, what went wrong, and what he thinks the future holds for transport in the capital R
AIL has learned over the years that ever-affable London Transport Commissioner Mike Brown can be relied on for a solid, powerful and memorable quote - but revealing that he was forced to within a heartbeat of pulling the plug and stopping London’s public transport system - yes, the Tube and bus network - was a real show-stopper. His words are on the opposite page.
This show-stopping revelation was given yet more power by the calm way in which he candidly voiced this appalling prospect. Brown has always given new meaning to the word ‘unruffled’ - but even he excelled himself here. It sounds like the screenplay for some apocalyptic movie - but it really happened.
Brown took over as Transport Commissioner in 2015. Without doubt, it is one of the biggest jobs in the country.
London’s population was 8.6 million in 2015 and is forecast to reach ten million by 2030. The ability to move around the capital with ease is central to coping with that growth - providing access to housing, health, jobs, education and leisure in the engine room of the UK economy.
The day his appointment was announced, he said: “My priorities will be the continuing modernisation of the capital’s transport networks, including the upgrade of the Tube, more fast, frequent, metro-style rail services, the delivery of Crossrail and Crossrail 2.”
But his organisation has been knocked off course by unexpected events: an economic downturn and ‘austerity’… the Croydon tram crash… Brexit… and now a global pandemic that has pulled the rug from beneath Transport for London’s feet.
“The frontline delivery of services in the last three months has been extraordinary,” he says. “Even in the most stringent lockdown this country has ever seen, we kept Tube and bus services going. That was hugely impressive.
“We are still 85% down compared with normal levels. All our stations have changed.
We have to constrain numbers. We have to mandate face coverings. These are massive changes in what is a public transport city. This is not a car city.
“We have widened footways and extended cycleways for social distancing. We have changed more in a few weeks than we would normally manage in several years. Remarkable. Not easy.”
But with income from fares largely wiped out, it has come at a price. TfL had to go capin-hand to central Government for money. In doing so, it had to agree to changes - interference, if you prefer that choice of word - that it would previously have resisted.
Brown explains: “The rest of the national industry, the private operators, got early-doors whatever they needed to keep going. Network Rail is actually delivering more projects and has free reign to do so.
“Meanwhile, we are sitting here starving. Let’s not beat about the bush - we are absolutely living hand to mouth now on TfL.
“We have a deal that stopped me pulling
the plug on services. But only just. I was hours from having to stop the Underground and buses from running in this, the greatest city on Earth. How insane is that? How could that even be allowed to happen?
“I waited until five to midnight on the day when I would have had to pull the plug for the next day, before I got the letter from the Government on an interim funding settlement.
“This isn’t a party-political point. But I am afraid it really does need a fresh look at how this dynamic between a devolved city such as London operates in the context of a national government.”
If Brown has been comprehensively knocked off-course, he does a good job of hiding it. Like his predecessors, Sir Peter Hendy CBE and Bob Kiley, he has an infectious enthusiasm for his work that spreads to those around him.
Five years on from his appointment, he is not just leaving Transport for London, but leaving the industry in which he has spent most of his working life. Has he achieved what he set out to do when he left running Heathrow Airport to take up Mayor Boris Johnson’s invitation to fill Hendy’s shoes?
Brown’s answer is dry. But it makes clear how he believes London’s relationship with central government requires reform.
“The second day I was Acting
Commissioner, I set up a major financial review. The state of the finances at that time was not tenable. We spent more than the previous month, every month, for the whole first 15 years of TfL’s history. That was just not sustainable.
“I knew where some of the costs and duplication of processes sat. TfL was not a unified organisation, and I had to bring it together as a single force for passengers. We had to become slicker and more robust.
“Up to the pandemic, we were on track to make an operating surplus for the first time in the history of transport operations in London. We reduced our deficit under my tenure by 70%. That is a remarkable achievement, especially in the context of central Government taking away £ 800 million a year of operating subsidy. It has been reduced to zero.
“At the same time, we have been shooting the lights out in terms of the service that we provide across the network.”
What does he think of the financial structure? Does it work for passengers?
“It worked fine for a time, when things were going well. When ridership was increasing, it just about worked.
“But you look at other major cities around the world. They all automatically get a cut of central funding… London gets nothing. “There is a perception here that London gets everything, that it gets all the big money for transport - more per head than any other part of the country. That erroneous information has skewed political thinking. Some believe that the economic powerhouse that is London is somehow able to be compromised in this way.
“One reason: in London, the dynamic of how people travel is very different from any other city in the UK. It is the only place where car ownership is less than 50% of the population. That is a real difference.
“And on top of the eight million people who live here, another two million come in from outside the capital every day. And they rely on the services that TfL provides. That is a different dynamic to anywhere else in the UK. But it is also different from many other capital cities around the world.
“And the bang for your buck, that you get for investing in London’s transport infrastructure, always filters to the regions and the other nations of the UK. For every pound spent in London, more than half goes in jobs, growth and real opportunities outside London and the South East.
“Just before lockdown, I was up in a field in Goole on Humberside.
Very soon that will be a factory built by Siemens, which is going to manufacture Piccadilly Line trains.
We have a deal that stopped me pulling the plug on services. But only just. I was hours from having to stop the Underground and buses from running in this, the greatest city on Earth. How insane is that? How could that even be allowed to happen?
“I went to a fantastic school that has been turned around by an inspirational headmaster, to see the young kids who could get apprenticeships or real construction jobs on site. That spread of skills should not be underestimated. It has not been understood by everyone in Government.”
Low point: Sandilands
On November 9 2016, a Croydon tram derailed and overturned on a sharp bend on the approach to Sandilands. The speed limit was 12mph. A report into the incident found the tram had been travelling at 45mph.
Seven people died and 62 others were injured, 19 of them seriously. It was the first fatal tram incident in the UK for more than half a century.
“This was the lowest time in my 30 years in transport,” says Brown without hesitation.
“There is never a day that goes by that I don’t think about those who lost their lives, their families, their loved ones. And the people who were injured in that terrible event.
“That is without doubt, without question, the lowest point by far. That service is operated under TfL’s auspices. There is still an inquiry going on, but I don’t think this is about apportioning blame between ourselves and the operator, FirstGroup. They operate the trams, but they have our branding on the side. Of course, I take the accountability very clearly.
“No tram network in the country had automatic braking systems that were operable before that event. We have put in a lot of changes since that incident.
“For the whole tram industry, across the world, it’s an equivalent of the King’s Cross fire situation - an incident where the learning will prevail for generations. Trams will change as a result. It’s a terrible price to pay to get those measures in place.
“A high-speed overturning of a tram vehicle just wasn’t on the list of things that kept me awake at night at the time. No tram operator thought about it at the time. That doesn’t excuse it happening, it’s just how it was.
“Another low point was that we didn’t win the argument with Government on assisting with our capital spending. We continue to do a lot of great things: the Northern
Line extension, the Overground to Barking Riverside, new trains for Docklands Light Railway, new signalling on the Circle and Metropolitan and District Lines - all really important things.
“But you want to do more. You want to have the funding to transform Camden Town station, which is not fit for purpose. You want to transform Holborn station, so that when it gets new signalling and new trains, it can cope with the increased capacity.”
Low point: Crossrail
The launch of Elizabeth Line services should have been the high point on Mike Brown’s watch. Instead, it became a recurring headline story of delays and rising costs, with questions in Parliament, accusations of poor management and even calls for Brown to resign.
But Crossrail’s structure was in place long before Brown arrived on the scene. And run at arm’s length from TfL, the project had its own board.
“I am disappointed that the Crossrail team let me down. They let London down. It did not go as it should have done,” says Brown.
“Would you ever set up a project like Crossrail in that management structure again? Absolutely you would not.
“We had updates from the board of
Crossrail which continued to give reassuring information. Good metrics were produced, and we were told they were confident about timings.
“But the information coming up from individual projects clearly was not being communicated properly upwards, and it was not brought together to see an overall series of risks.
“We have a great team in place now, and they are tackling all sorts of things that were not done as they should have been. The previous people did some incredible things. Building such a massive tunnel beneath central London is remarkable engineering. They were solving huge problems, but not solving every individual one at a granular level at the same time. They ran out of runway.
“It will still be the most extraordinary transformation for our city. Like the Channel Tunnel, like Heathrow Terminal 5, people will remember how brilliant it is, rather than how long it took to get there.”
High Point: Air quality
Perhaps Brown’s greatest achievement, where the impact will be felt most widely, has been away from the railway.
The evidence is overwhelming that fumes from road traffic, and emissions from older diesel engines in particular, contribute to the early deaths of thousands of people each year. And this is predominantly an urban problem - the fumes disperse more easily in less densely populated areas, where vehicle speeds are also higher.
“We introduced the world’s first Ultra Low
Up to the pandemic, we were on track to make an operating surplus for the first time in the history of transport operations in London.
Emission Zone. It blew us away in terms of the cleaning up for air quality in the centre of London. Literally overnight. There is no longer a party-political debate about air quality in our city - five years ago, there was. I am very proud of that.
“And we’ve seen the reductions during the COVID crisis. This has made people think they can breathe in the capital. They think things can be done differently.
“Also, on the positive side, we brought the Night Tube in. That was transforming the night-time economy in central London until the pandemic.”
The pandemic impact
When government ministers urged travellers not to use public transport, and even to drive their cars instead, TfL’s business took a severe knock. Tube passenger numbers fell by 95% and bus passengers by 85%.
Eighty per cent of TfL revenue comes from fares. Transport investment in London is likely to fall significantly as it tackles the long-term impact of the pandemic.
Its financial plans for 2020-24, published last December, lie in tatters. TfL Chief Financial Officer Simon Kilonback told his board in June: “It is unlikely, even with significant external support, that we will return to any similar plan or levels of investment in the medium term.”
The scale of the problem is mind-boggling. TfL costs £ 600m a month to run. It expects the collapse in travel demand to result in an income loss of more than £ 4 billion this year. It is also vulnerable to reduced income from business rates, which provide much of the non-fare income. Even digging deeply into its cash reserves, Kilonback expects a full-year funding gap of more than £ 3bn.
To reduce outgoings, TfL put more than 7,000 staff on furlough and released 770 contract workers.
In May, the Government provided a bailout: a £1.095bn grant and a loan of £ 505m to see TfL through to October ( RAIL 906). Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps attached conditions to the funding, which include having central government represented at
TfL board meetings and a centrally led review of TfL’s financial position. It would appear to be the very opposite of devolution - the Department for Transport is taking a grip on London’s transport in a way it has not done for years.
TfL will have to negotiate a new deal with central government and expects this will include significant deferral of capital spending. The deal also includes a fare increase of RPI + 1% next January, after four years of fares freeze. Free travel for people aged over 60 and under 18 will also go.
“It has changed, for sure,” concedes Brown diplomatically. “The Government has required us to look at all sorts of things. We made commitments and we have made them all come to pass.
“Passenger numbers will not return quickly, and we cannot keep operating without a level of support. We now get into the very challenging discussions over the summer, to reach the next phase of financial agreement.
“The Government has asked to have
people attending our finance committee, our major investment committee, and the TfL board. I absolutely welcome that, because I know how well we stand up against pretty much every other part of the public sector. We are not perfect… but bring the scrutiny on!
“Our big projects will - at some point - still cross the hurdle. But it would be foolish of me to say there won’t be an impact. We must keep the projects that are already in train, because these are jobs with people working on site now. These are contracts with commercial obligations and supply chains.
“But future projects are at risk. I mentioned the new Piccadilly Line trains. We have to find a way to secure the funding for them to continue. I want the Piccadilly Line not to have pretty much the oldest trains in the country. In fact, the only place with older trains is the Bakerloo Line. And this is London!
“More widely, this is important for UK plc. If we stop this pipeline of projects, the talent in the supply chain will disappear. Within months. It will go off to the Middle East, to Australia or to China, where there is a huge swathe of capital programmes going on. I don’t want to see those skills lost.”
Nevertheless, Brown is leaving an organisation that has had £4 in every £ 5 of income washed away.
“Absolutely. It has devastated our income, and we have fixed costs to pay. We are obliged to pay our workforce and our supply chain - we can’t just stop spending money. We can furlough some back-office staff. But we can’t furlough a driver on the Northern Line, because we are running pretty much a full service. That service is bringing in much less income.
“We will have to ask for a very large amount more money. It was important to survive the first phase of the pandemic, which we have done. The next phase is as important, once the first funding finishes in October. We need
People think it’s the financial institutions that keep London going, but it’s actually the people who are working in transport who keep the capital moving. The people at Bank station rather than the people in the bank. The people who drive a train through the city every morning.
a perspective on how we are going to deal with this. It will be the first big job for my successor.”
A personal price to pay
Mike Brown obviously finds the job energising. Even in his final days in office, weighed down by an especially heavy workload, he clearly maintains enthusiasm. But, he says, it’s time to go.
“With any big job like this, you expect it to be all-consuming. And there were some big moments. Sandilands. The 7/7 bombings - I was chief operating officer of Tube and buses, and I was down on site. What I saw, I can never forget.
“On the positive side, the Olympics was a big deal. The media had the ‘Tube in Chaos’ headlines all ready, but never used them. We shot the lights out.” ( This is a phrase he repeats a lot.)
“The last three months have been about as full-on as it gets. We have to keep the organisation running, and motivated and inspired, during a very challenging time for everyone. When the Mayor asked me to stay a bit longer, to see through the early stages of this crisis, there was no way I would say no.
“I first joined London Underground in 1989. Apart from a spell running Heathrow Airport, I have been here a long time. Very rewarding, because we have the opportunity to improve the lives of large numbers of people every day.
“But you can’t do that forever. I think five years is enough in a full-on job. I am 56. My father died when he was 66. I have a son at school. I owe my family a bit more time, and some time for me.”
Brown is not exactly retiring. He will go straight into a new role, heading the organisation tasked with modernising the Palace of Westminster. It’s about as highprofile as running the transport system, and right under the noses of politicians. He can’t expect a quiet or an easy ride.
“It’s very different. I’m not the boss. I’m the chairman of the delivery authority to renew and refurbish the buildings. One of the areas I will focus on is skills and apprenticeships.
“Parliament is not London’s head office, it’s the UK’s. And I want to ensure that real skills, real opportunities are created in deprived communities all over the UK. In the former industrial areas in the North East, in Glasgow and Belfast, where there is real appetite and talent that we can harness. If possible, we want to involve people from every constituency across the UK.”
So, in his end of term report, what marks would Brown award himself for his time at TfL?
“8½,” he replies.
Why?
“I’m a hard marker! There is always a reason you can find to delay moving on to another role. Yes, I want to see Crossrail finished. I want to see the Northern Line extension open. I want to see Barking Riverside. I want to see the Ultra Low Emission Zone extended out to the North and South Circular Roads. But if I saw all that, then there would be something else I wanted to see through.
“The one thing I would emphasise is this: people think it’s the financial institutions that keep London going, but it’s actually the people who are working in transport who keep the capital moving. The people at Bank station rather than the people in the bank. The people who drive a train through the city every morning. People need to say this more.
“It is only possible to lead a successful organisation if you have good people in the team. This hasn’t always been easy to lead, but it would have been impossible without the talent we have.
“I have met the most fantastic, talented, diverse, brilliant people who work in our transport system. They are the hidden heroes of London. And never more so than in the last few weeks.”