NR chairman to act as Christmas travel tsar
The Government has appointed Network Rail Chairman Sir Peter Hendy CBE to act as a ‘tsar’ to oversee travel planning for the holiday period.
So, what does a Christmas travel tsar actually do?
“I take the blame!” he told RAIL. “It’s a reasonable thing.
This Christmas there is a window between the 23rd and the 27th in which you are allowed to meet other people. That hasn’t happened before, let alone with social distancing on public transport as well.
“I am looking over the arrangements to see whether I can spot things that ought to be being done but aren’t. Prediction is a real art with this stuff.
“What I discovered at London Transport, years ago, is that the sequence of days replicates only every six or seven years depending on leap years. The travel pattern varies according to which day of the week Christmas falls. But social habits have changed faster this time, so it won’t be the same as the last time Christmas landed on a Friday. This does warrant a bit of effort.”
Hendy (pictured) is joining an 0900 Department for Transport briefing each morning until Christmas, offering what he calls
“independent scrutiny”.
“If it gives ministers some comfort, I don’t mind giving it a look. The one thing they don’t want is to discover a load of people trying to go home on December 23 and not being able to get there. It would be a bit much to expect the Secretary of State - or Michael Gove or Boris Johnson - to know whether the arrangements are alright or not. But I’ve been around a few years and I can give a bit of reassurance about what might be flexible and what can’t be changed.
“Moving back the start of Christmas Eve work at King’s Cross until after the last train leaves makes sense. We were going to close it earlier. And opening Euston earlier on December 27 also adds capacity. These changes wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t taken this extra look.
“The real constraint on the railway isn’t actually the engineering work, it’s the ability of train companies to staff whatever they have to run. Because of COVID, there hasn’t been much driver training, so there are fewer drivers around. There’s also quite a lot of shielding and self-isolating.”
Nevertheless, Hendy expects the system to cope. “But none of us really know, do we? We haven’t been through this before. There is a reluctance to use public transport at the moment. But a lot of people will be anxious to see friends and family they haven’t seen in months.
“If you’re the Secretary of State or the Prime Minister, it would be a bit rich to sit back and assume it will all be OK. I will look at the resources.
“And I’m on Andrew’s back
[NR Chief Executive Andrew Haines]. It is really important this time that the engineering works due to finish on the morning of December 27 actually hand back on time. That is the day everyone who has been away needs to get home, because that is the last day of freedom.”