The operational staff perspective of fragmentation
Railway staff were surveyed with the assistance of the rail unions. Nearly 100 staff responded, most of whom work in ‘frontline’ operational roles.
The survey asked for examples of how the different parts of the railway fail to work together, and also asked how the different parts of the railway do successfully work together. Some answers add professional insights to the six big fragmentation issues raised in the passenger survey, as shown by the examples below.
Other staff responses raised operational and technical issues that may seriously affect the functioning of the railway, but which are only obvious to rail professionals. Professional fragmentation issues raised by staff include:
Company-specific careers mean lack of understanding between roles.
Proliferation of rolling stock types means loss of in-depth engineering know-how.
Companies operating similar rolling stock fail to share useful knowledge.
Rolling stock shortages cannot be covered by other TOCs’ rolling stock.
Disputed responsibility for station maintenance delays repairs and wastes effort.
Outsourcing functions to contractors leads to delays in repairs to facilities.
Functions are duplicated between different companies.
Some rail activities are in a constant state of flux as multiple companies change.
Stations operate to different procedures, providing inconsistent service.
NR-TOC disputes over blockades hinder timeliness of infrastructure work.
Rail infrastructure work is complicated by involvement of multiple companies.
Solo procurement by each company loses scale economies and adds waste.
Long-term thinking is destroyed by planning constrained by franchise terms.
Drivers with TOC-specific training are unable to work available diversion routes.
Trains are delayed or cancelled when drivers from other TOCs are available.
Information provision at some stations only covers the TOC that runs the station.
Few respondents were able to offer examples of different parts of the railway working together successfully, with most explicitly stating that they could think of none in response to a question seeking such examples. However, some traffic control staff noted that co-location of Network Rail and train operating company controllers had brought benefits because it “improves the flow of communications”.
Taken overall, comments from staff give an impression of railway staff who care about passengers and the railway, who are frustrated that its present structure tends to undermine their professionalism, and who
are doing their best to make the railway work for passengers despite its fragmented structure.
There were multiple replies that spoke of staff developing informal systems to try to overcome the fractures. For example: “Informally, we often ignore the fact that we are supposed to be working for competing businesses, and just do what is best for the passengers anyway. Ignoring the fact that we are supposed to be in competition makes my job [Guard] a lot easier because I am able to give passengers a much better service.”
The strategic management perspective of fragmentation
Two official reports precipitated by failures of cost control in the British railway (the McNulty and Bowe reports) compiled evidence showing how fragmentation resulting from the privatised railway structure impairs strategic management and everyday operation of the railway.
A third (the Shaw report) into the future shape and financing of Network Rail mainly focused on other matters, but did recognise that “the railway needs to function as an interoperable system” and explicitly noted that there is a need to “balance devolution with national system operation”.
The McNulty and Bowe reports describe a litany of issues arising from fragmentation. These are discussed in more detail in RailReview Q4-2017.
An integrated railway in public ownership has to do it better
It is striking that all of the official reports that identified problems and excess costs arising from fragmentation of the railway failed to recommend major reduction of fragmentation. This striking omission derives from the fact that fragmentation is a pre-requisite for privatisation, and the reports’ authors regarded privatisation as an
The railway was, at a stroke, cut into pieces to facilitate privatisation of its parts. Putting it back together again will, necessarily, be a slower process.
unchallengeably good thing.
Labour challenges the underlying misperception that the market is the best way to design a railway and can adopt the obvious solution to fragmentation - reintegration of the railway.
The perspectives of passengers, staff and managers in the previous sections reveal the challenges to be addressed. The points emerging from these perspectives can be drawn together to summarise the functional attributes that the future railway must have if a Labour Government’s reform of the railway is to be judged a success. Very few of these attributes can be achieved within the present fragmented railway structure.
The capabilities required of a reintegrated railway within public ownership include:
A railway that functions as a whole in its strategic planning for improvements - with infrastructure and train operations working as a unified whole rather than divorced from one another (so that, for example, trains no longer get ordered without certainty whether the routes they run on will be electrified or will need diesel traction).
A railway that functions as a whole in its daily operation - with infrastructure and all train operations working as an integrated whole to maximise service continuity around planned and unplanned disruption.
A railway able to take responsibility to get passengers from one end of their rail journey to the other.
A railway that is easy to use from one side of the network to the other.
A railway that is integrated with other forms of local public transport.
A railway that works together to give the densest possible network of services at regular spacings, rather than multiple operators but fewer available travel options.
A railway where ticketing is unified, simple and logical - and where it does not feel like a lottery to get reasonable price tickets.
A railway where information is reliable, timely, consistent, comprehensive and readily available.
A railway that is cost-effective in how its parts work together, without duplication and conflict between parts in its day-to-day operation or its strategic planning.
A railway that is cost-effective in procuring and managing its rolling stock and other equipment so that all parts of the railway can maximise possible economies of scale, and so that rail manufacturing is supported in Britain.
A railway that maximises opportunities to move freight by rail - where a ‘guiding mind’ controls all train operations and gives the benefits of freight on rail appropriate weight in trade-offs against passenger services (where travellers’ opinions alone would lead to suboptimal overall outcomes).
Rail devolution has the potential to make all of these issues better - or worse. The way in which Labour accommodates both national integration and devolution within its publicly owned rail structure must enable these functional outcomes.
Necessity to sharply define the new rail model
The railway was, at a stroke, cut into pieces to facilitate privatisation of its parts. Putting it back together again will, necessarily, be a slower process.
At the earliest stage, a Labour government will put in place an overarching integrated structure for the railway that will create a guiding mind and deliver strategic planning for the whole railway. Thereafter, franchises will be reclaimed from the train operating companies as they expire and become available at zero cost. It is possible that some franchisees, as in the past, will fail to meet over-optimistic franchise financial targets and so will wish to hand back those franchises before term.
Nevertheless, it is clear that there will be an unavoidable period of a ‘hybrid’ railway as the process of change proceeds. This makes it all the more important that the intended final structure for the railway is clearly defined from the outset, so that the whole railway is clear what will happen and can plan accordingly.
In a future article, I will present a possible structure for a nationally integrated railway within public ownership, and discuss its pros and cons in regard to how it accommodates rail devolution and various other requirements.
For more on Labour’s plans for rail nationalisation, including more industry comments, read RailReview Q4-2017, available from www.railreview.com.