London Banter - View Single Post

Paul Corfield · April 14th 05, 06:00 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 14 Apr 2005 03:38:37 -0700, wrote:

I am no lover of the PPP's but have to say that the Underground service
is greatly improved from what it was a few years back. I commuted into
London in 1999 and again in 2001 and with the refunds for delays I got
at least one free journey a fortnight. I am working in London again now
and I haven't found the need to a single claim in.

It is broadly better but performance is too variable and good
performance is not being sustained. There are some truly awful and
really quite silly problems that cause huge delays. The really big
problems are that there is still not fully "joined up" thinking in the
Infracos and a lot of people are still doing the easiest and cheapest
fixes. Time and again this approach is being shown to be inadequate. The
relationship between project work and day to day delivery also needs a
huge push. If you look at the quote in the original post it is exactly
those areas that are causing the most grief.

I was slightly amazed at Ken Livingstone's and Bob Kylie's comments
though.
Do these two think that if LUL were actually running the show that the
situation would be any better. The only thing that I would say is that
without the PPP's it would be 10 times worse.

I think Mr Kiley and the American managers who have been brought in have
a radically different view on how to do things. They do not like the
loss of control that is created by having big private companies
responsible for both day to day operational issues as well as the
delivery of project based works. It would not be so bad if the risk to
the service was properly controlled within the Infracos but it isn't
(yet) and this causes massive frustration with the senior LU people who
are being hammered by the Mayor and TfL to deliver an effective service
to the public.

I am convinced that they believe they could easily run the Underground
much more effectively than the PPP arrangements and could deliver the
big project programmes to time and cost.
--
Paul C

Admits to working for London Underground!