The board
papers for the 8th November TFL board meeting are out so below I will show you some parts from
those board papers.
London
Underground (LU) - Night Tube
The third of London’s Night Tube
lines, the Jubilee line, began operating on the evening of Friday 7 October.
This service supports the growing night time economy in the West End, as well
as Stratford – one of the busiest stations on the Central line Night Tube
service – and key venues such as Wembley Stadium, Wembley Arena and The O2 at
North Greenwich station.
Night Tube services on the
Central and Victoria lines, which launched on 19 August, continue to exceed expectations with passenger journeys higher than
forecast. Since adding the Jubilee line service, the Night Tube is now carrying around 130,000 customers each weekend.
We have now confirmed the launch of
Night Tube services on the Northern line on Friday 18 November.
The
modernisation of the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan
lines
We have introduced 179 new walkthrough,
air-conditioned S stock trains on these lines and are upgrading our signalling
equipment to provide more reliable and frequent services.
Depot, station and siding modifications
allow us to accommodate the new trains. There are 58 new trains on the
Metropolitan line and 121 on the Circle, District and Hammersmith & City.
On the District line, 68 (from a total of 80) new trains have entered service
and the remainder will be introduced by the end of December 2016. As part of this,
we are removing old District line trains from service but will keep a small
number until late spring 2017 while new signalling equipment is fitted to the S
stock trains.
Elizabeth
line: preparations for new trains
We will shortly start driver training on the
new Class 345 simulator, which was installed at Ilford during August and
September. With realistic driving cabs replicating the functions of the actual
train, the simulator uses virtual reality computer-generated views of the
Elizabeth line routes.
London
Rail
New
concession on London Overground (LO)
Arriva's
mobilisation to take over the operation of the LO concession from 13 November
is proceeding to plan and we
expect a seamless transition from the current operator London Overground Rail
Operations Limited (LOROL).
As LOROL
enters the final weeks of its tenure, its focus on operational performance
remains strong, which will provide a solid foundation for Arriva to build upon.
Arriva will be looking to make further improvements, and is progressing its
plans in collaboration with key partners, including Network Rail and
Bombardier.
New
trains
The new trains
are due to enter service from 2018 and will transform the service
experienced by customers as they will include
walk-through carriages, air conditioning and improved accessibility.
Buses
Bus
route 3
On bus route 3, where we have introduced a
significant proportion of the planned bus priority schemes, monitoring
indicates journey time improvements of approximately two and a half minutes in
the morning peak, which is more than double the expected benefit. There are
further schemes planned on route 3 later this financial year, and bus journey
times will continue to be monitored.
It’s also
worth mentioning that route 3 uses the
three-door two-staircase hybrid buses which are known as New Routemasters. The
three-door boarding is one of the things that has reduced waiting times at bus
stops.
Recovering
lost patronage
We have launched a campaign to encourage
customers back on the bus network. It raises
awareness of the positive improvements, such as greater reliability, increased frequency, new routes and bus
station upgrades. The campaign, communicates news stories on a location- and
route-specific level where possible, including a detailed local message.
I think this
is due to passengers not touching in when they board the bus by the middle and
rear doors; hopefully though, the 1 hour hopper fare scheme will reduce the
lost patronage for London Transport Buses.
Here’s
another board paper on East London Crossings which is worth checking out.
During his election campaign, the Mayor
committed to undertake a strategic review of the options for new river crossings
east of Tower Bridge.
On 4 October 2016, the Mayor announced a
package of new river crossings which reflect his priorities. These are:
- a series of enhancements to be made to the proposals for the Silvertown Tunnel;
- plans for a new pedestrian and cycle bridge linking Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf to be accelerated;
- a DLR crossing at Gallions Reach, helping support the development of around 17,000 new homes across Newham and the Royal Borough of Greenwich;
- further assessment of a Barking Riverside – Abbey Wood London Overground crossing; and
- further assessment of a North Greenwich-Isle of Dogs ferry.
The case for the potential road crossings at Gallions Reach and Belvedere promoted by the previous Mayor will be considered as part of the emerging Mayor’s Transport Strategy.
Now let’s
look at the summary of the ‘Bus Driver Training’ board paper.
TfL’s
bus services are provided by private sector operators, contracted by TfL, and are the most used form of public transport in London. The private bus companies employ 25,000 drivers
to deliver 700 bus route services across London. Quarterly customer satisfaction levels are high and customer complaints
low.
During 2014,
bus customer complaints were analysed to generate a number of key customer
‘gain points’ (listed in Appendix 1). In 2015, we developed a customer
training programme “Hello London”, specifically
for bus drivers and performance scheduling staff, focusing on the ‘gain
points’ and other research, and also encompassing safety, driving technique and
common TfL policies and service standards.
The Hello London approach has been to
harness innovative situation drama with reflective facilitation to explore the
emotional and behavioural response of drivers and customers in a safe learning
environment.
So far all 1,700-support staff and more than 5,000 drivers have attended the
two-day course, which has a 92 per
cent rating by attendees as ‘excellent / very good’. A positive shift in customer service attitudes addressing the pain points
has also been observed. To date there have been more than 500 suggestions
for improvement from drivers relating to improvements for customers and
improvements for their role as a bus driver, where many feel unsupported and
undervalued.
Activities are underway to support delivery
of improved customer service. These include a driver incentive scheme for
particularly good service, a trial of
drivers wearing name badges, a new driver City & Guilds qualification
with a focus on customer experience/service importance, a campaign to encourage
TfL staff to thank and commend drivers for good service and addressing the need
for improved driver toilet facilities. We have also launched campaigns to educate
customers and to make drivers feel valued. We are also working with all the private bus operators to embed Hello London
training into their business as usual operations.
We will continue to monitor our existing
metrics to check on the positive impact of the Hello London programme. We
expect to see higher quarterly customer satisfaction survey scores, reduced
complaints and positive shifts in driver attitude.
The course
will run until spring 2018 and feedback from attendees will be incorporated
in our bus service development plans. Development of a Hello London course for TfL bus operational staff (at bus
stations and in response vehicles) is currently underway and is to be rolled
out in 2016/17.
Someone has
submitted a Freedom of Information
request to TFL asking about the costs of the ‘Hello London’ programme.
The TFL Freedom of Information department said:
Thank you for your email received on 11 July
2016 asking for information about the "Hello London" training for Bus
Drivers.
This important training is being given to
all 25,000 bus drivers over two years and is designed to:
·
Improve
customer service
·
Help
drivers offer the best support to elderly customers and customers with
disabilities, and how to approach any conflict over the use of the space on
buses prioritised for wheelchair users.
The
two-day course includes working
through live reconstructions of the difficult situations they have to handle
leading a service that delivers 2.25 billion passenger journeys every year.
Your request has been considered under the
requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access
policy. I can confirm that we do hold some of the information you require.
1) The amount paid to "Steps
Drama", the facilitators of the classes
£1,792,200
across the two years of the contract.
2) The
estimated cost of the wage bill for the 24,000 drivers who will each be
spending two days at this event.
We do
not hold this information as bus operators directly employ bus drivers. However, this cost is not borne by the course as the training contributes
towards Driver Certificate of
Professional Competence (CPC) hours, which operators budget for in their staff costs. Professional drivers of
buses, coaches and lorries must complete 35
hours of CPC training every five years to keep driving for a living.
3) Any additional costs associated with this
event.
£3,350,000
which includes premises, travel
costs, course materials and other costs.
As the two-day Hello London training course
is provided to just under 25,000 drivers in the fleet, the overall cost equates
to about £100 a day per driver.
Lastly, a
new update from LOTS:
1) London General WHVs are now appearing
daily on the 14/22/74/430 from Putney Garage.
A batch of 39 x EH (AD E40H / E400MMC) buses will start to follow soon, this order replacing
the original plan for EHVs. The StreetLites (batch WS 66-74) have started to
arrive at Plough Lane Garage for route 39.
At London United the dedicated
Kingston University buses (VH 45209-213) should start to enter service
there in the next week or so, allowing most of the temporary allocation (VH
45162-66) to move elsewhere. At Arriva, with more LTs now in service on the 253, HVs have started to be stood down at
Stamford Hill prior to moving to south London. In a complex set of subsequent
moves it will allow enough buses to cover with T-class E400s the assumption of
route 157 from Abellio on 2nd December.
2) The Euro Bus Expo at the NEC on 1/2/3
November featured among the many
exhibits six buses for London, all being full or partly electric. Metroline BYD1474 and Go-Ahead SEe35, a Wright StreetAir-EV prototype,
an Optare MetroCity-EV demonstrator and a MetroDecker-EV,
whilst there was a Volvo B5LHC with SRM bodywork and a roofmounted pantograph. Additionally
one of Metrobus’ Fastway liveried StreetLites and for our near neighbour
Reading a StreetDeck and a gas powered
E400MMC.
As always, I
invite you to follow me on Twitter
and Google Plus which is @CLondoner92
Image Attribution
Regent Street by Gerard Stolk https://www.flickr.com/photos/gerardstolk/30606482791/