For many Londoners, the commute into work yesterday was one sent from hell. Most Underground services were brought to a complete standstill thanks to a 24-hour tube strike by the RMT and TSSA unions. That morning at the Conservative Party Conference, London Mayor Boris Johnson called for legislation demanding a 50% threshold for the calling of industrial strikes by Transport for London workers.
If this legislation were to be established, it would be a godsend to many London commuters. Standing on a cold platform, listening to somebody shouting into their mobile beside you, while waiting for your extremely delayed train into the city is nobody’s idea of fun, and the strikes have brought many parts of the city to a standstill. However, Boris is not making things easy for himself by bluntly describing the tube strike as ‘a load of cobblers’ – whatever his feelings about the strike, this not probably the best way to go about winning strike sympathisers over to his side. Still, many Londoners feel the same way.
Boris’s proposal is fair and reasonable to both London commuters and London Underground employees. London can’t be threatened by Tube strikes every other week just because a handful of employees throw their toys out of the pram over wages. Instead of disrupting everyone’s travel, these things must be discussed properly as adults. Strikes may have been effective in the past, but times have changed and this one hasn’t done anybody any favours, including the tube workers. They have lost themselves a day’s pay, achieved little politically, and have left their fellow Londoners in an extremely bad mood.
As tempted as I am to unleash a tirade upon your union for turning my usually easy journey home into an expedition of Crusoeian proportions last night, I shall restrain myself. Instead, I’ll attempt to show you and your striking union members that the advent of the Oyster Card is to be celebrated, not used as an excuse for disrupting my tube-ride home.
Now, Bob, since the introduction of the Oyster Card, the proportion of journeys using a traditional ticket has fallen to one in twenty. It seems obvious that fewer tickets sold means fewer ticket office staff needed. Indeed, Transport for London has identified eight hundred jobs that no longer need performing.
Yet this is where you climb atop your soapbox, dust off your megaphone and shout “workers of the world unite”, taking to your picket to fiercely defend your conception of your members’ interests. “Whilst the jobs no loner need doing”, you decry, “it is a great evil that the employer should even think of not employing workers to perform them”.
And this is where we disagree, or, rather, where you are wrong. Yes the Oyster Card has rendered eight hundred of the jobs your members were performing redundant. However, the resulting redundancies free up labour that can then be used producing more of the goodies that me and you both enjoy. As the former ticket officers start new jobs, we’ll have just as much tube travel as before (thanks to the Oyster card) in addition to whatever the former ticket office staff now produce. In short, we will have more stuff. We will have become richer!
Try to understand, Bob, I don’t lack sympathy for the workers whom may be without jobs for a while. Rather, I recognise that everyone (including they) will benefit if they move from work done cheaper by technology into work better performed by people. Of course, this requires such jobs being available for them to move into, a more likely scenario in the vibrant free market economy you never quite seem to endorse.
Now, in fairness to you Bob, it’s not only your Rail Maritime and Transport Union that doesn’t understand the economics underlying your strike action. If you could forward this to the head of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association I’d be most grateful. More importantly, though, could your guys get back to work before my journey home later?
Whilst the Department of Transport is grappling with meeting its public expenditure cuts, (memo – scale back the Crossrail investment programme), there is still unfinished business on the railways.
First, commuter fares need to be addressed – most are price-regulated. The recent rise in inflation will push up commuter fares and the Treasury may demand a further increase – up to 10% in total for hard-pressed commuters?
To offset higher commuter fares, greater efforts should be made to generate efficiencies on the system, especially at Network Rail.
Since the unnecessary demise of Railtrack in 2001, Network Rail has at least carried out most of its investment programme – and especially the West Coast Main Line upgrade project that virtually ran out of control. But its net debt has now soared to £23 billion, as cash flows rapidly out of the business.
However, the many shortcomings of Network Rail, especially its high cost base and its byzantine governance structure, are becoming apparent. There have also been several unsavoury – and unsubstantiated - media reports about senior Network Rail staff excesses which Chairman, Rick Haythornthwaite, needs to address urgently.
Furthermore, Network Rail’s corporate structure, which is reminiscent of a water company in the 1970s, needs to be overhauled. Quite simply, the quaint ‘member’ system is not in keeping with 2010 management practices.
The railway franchise arrangements – a legacy of the botched railways privatisation of the 1990s - need to be reformed. The franchises should be larger, longer and less prescriptive - but very punitive if a franchisee fails to meet accepted standards without genuine excuses.
Speed cameras might be on their way out. Whilst many motorists breathe a sigh of relief, ‘safety campaigners’ have been angered by moves by the Government to cut spending on road safety and withdraw funding for new and existing speed cameras.
The ‘safety camera’, since its introduction in 1999, is purported to be a ‘life-saver’. The police, having carefully stipulated their objectives regarding the success of speed cameras, and how they have been met under their evaluation criteria, are speaking out on the government cuts. Sir Ian Blair (now ennobled) claimed that speed cameras are proven to cut road deaths, and thus we should be in favour of them, and Britain’s current most senior traffic policeman, Mick Giannasi, commented: "If nothing is put in place, speeds will rise and casualties will grow." Even if true, both suggests that the end always justifies the means. On that argument, you would bring back the death penalty.
In fact, the removal of speed cameras in Swindon has done nothing but see the number of accidents stay exactly the same. On the other hand, the number of people killed or injured at sites where speed cameras are placed has decreased by 67% in Devon. However, whether or not speed cameras do slow people down at particular sites, measuring speed at just one instant in time, does not put the rest of their driving under duress. It also means they are not looking at the road, at other vehicles – the speed camera becomes the greater threat. Indeed, they penalize people who might, for an instant, exceed the speed limit because they have their eyes on the road rather than the speedometer.
Coercion is what funds the policing project that brings in just under £100 million per annum for the Government. The free-market economist Walter Block blames the 40,000-a-year deaths on U.S. roads on the nationalization of infrastructure, expounding that proximate causes are blamed, and then attempts are made to deal with them, when the ultimate cause is bad management on the part of the government. A privatized road would see money from any safety measures implemented (and, who knows, they might be far more effective than the camera – perhaps then we would have something to compare it to!) put back into maintaining the road and road safety.
New Transport Secretary of State, Philip Hammond, and his deputy, Theresa Villiers – undeservedly omitted from the Cabinet – have many transport issues to address. Which are the priorities?
First on aviation; the decision to scrap BA’s third runway project at Heathrow is sensible. However, the proposed expansions of both Gatwick and Stansted should continue. But the BA/Heathrow problems will not disappear. BA has three chronic problems – aggressive competition, especially in Europe from Ryanair and Easyjet, seemingly intractable union differences and the accursed c£3 billion pension deficit. Every effort must be made to turn round BA. The eventual aim should be a highly competitive, non-union airline, preferably without any pension schemes, and with legacy liabilities being transferred elsewhere. As for Heathrow, the Department should seriously consider how it can auction off landing slots on a similar basis to the mobile spectrum.
On the trains, sorting out Network Rail – with a governance body more reminiscent of the hapless Football Association – is a priority. Its soaring net debt - £23 billion – should be cut. Train franchises require attention. Longer, larger franchises are preferable. Prescribing an integrated franchise, similar to the Isle of Wight model, should be tried as a pre-requisite to the eventual integration of the network.
On the underground, close liaison is needed with TfL to ensure that the massive capex overruns of the past do not recur. Furthermore, the very expensive Crossrail project should be deferred until public borrowing falls.
Action on the roads is less urgent, but the priority should be plugging bottlenecks and filling potholes – and forgetting yet more bus market investigations.
Improving the UK’s docks is important. Hence, the controversial Dibden Bay project should be reviewed, whilst the larger Trust Ports should be modernized – and preferably privatized.
For many Londoners, the commute into work yesterday was one sent from hell. Most Underground services were brought to a complete standstill thanks to a 24-hour tube strike by the RMT and TSSA unions. That morning at the Conservative Party Conference, London Mayor Boris Johnson called for legislation demanding a 50% threshold for the calling of industrial strikes by Transport for London workers.
As tempted as I am to unleash a tirade upon your union for turning my usually easy journey home into an expedition of Crusoeian proportions last night, I shall restrain myself. Instead, I’ll attempt to show you and your striking union members that the advent of the Oyster Card is to be celebrated, not used as an excuse for disrupting my tube-ride home.
Whilst the Department of Transport is grappling with meeting its public expenditure cuts, (memo – scale back the Crossrail investment programme), there is still unfinished business on the railways.
Speed cameras might be 
New Transport Secretary of State, Philip Hammond, and his deputy, Theresa Villiers – undeservedly omitted from the Cabinet – have many transport issues to address. Which are the priorities?