Robertj21a
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Presumably, it would only take a small increase in staff, but steadily year on year, to gradually reduce the level of overtime that causes problems.
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Southern DOO: ASLEF members vote 79.1% for revised deal
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There is more than just a 'numbers game' happening. Increasing staffing levels does not specifically reduce overtime. It also brings more complications as you are increasing everything staff related. That itself; increases overtime again.
Factors to consider :
- Rostering
- Depot establishment levels
- Route knowledge
- Incidents
- Learning and development days
- Assessment days
- Sickness
- Staff turnover
- Training time
- Recruitment
- Union
- Health and safety
- Industry groups
- Driver self development
- PT&R
This list is not exhaustive and each can be expanded upon further
I have just had some enjoyable rail travel in Switzerland and Germany courtesy of SBB (thanks Schengen!) , and there were no guards standing sombrely by the doors and the Drivers did not have or require superhuman qualities, but nevertheless the journey was entirely safe, and the on train staff were able to devote themselves to revenue protection and assisting passengers continuously (including elderly and disabled non German speakers). The OBS moved through the train with more speed than a UK guard having to monitor stops. Disabled passengers were reassured and their destinations were noted by the OBS and assistance was not lacking when required, though not sure whether this was a formal process or just good communication. i have other observations on the efficiency and safety of SBB but I can save them. It's the ever present sense of victimhood and vindication here dressed up as care for passengers sometimes prompts a response. You see there is a world of difference between care for passengers as a kind of abstract need and real personal care on a one to one basis at the time and place it is needed. I don't need or trust my care to someone using my condition merely as a stick to beat their employers and their political opponents.
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Robertj21a
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A nice long list, but I struggle to believe that recruitment of more staff won't reduce the problem overtime. If more staff doesn't help then I'd suggest there's a bigger problem to be resolved somewhere.
The GWR train had no on board staff, nor do most of the trains I drive, including many we were assured would have one to replace the guard. And I object to your accusations of victimhood and vindication. Maybe if British railways were run more like those on the continent in terms of how staff are treated and passengers are expected to behave then I wouldn't have to be posting a response at all.
Yes there is a bigger problem; hence the list.
As to why more staff doesn't specifically equal less overtime. Each time you add a member of staff you need to deal with their requirements too. Each member of staff will require :
Initial training and development. This requires an Instructor to be available and there is many off track days that need to be covered, typically requiring overtime to cover the lost productivity days. This is an ongoing process where you need to train staff.
Routes and traction training. As per above this usually requires time off track. Even after they become productive you still need to keep this up in the long term. As each new member of staff progresses they will typically need more routes and potentially more traction. My TOC has more than one traction and not all links sign all units.
With training every time you add new staff, especially from scratch, you have to allow for their training requirements. In the long term where you have new staff you still have to allow for situations where you have a full compliment of staff but due to the constraints of new Drivers they are unable to cover all work at a depot. This is typical where you have link working. Drivers with experience and who do sign all routes and traction can only have their work covered by those that are competent to cover it. Ergo rest day working will still be required.
Employment requirements. Each member of staff still needs to have things like Annual Leave. Typically leave is covered by rest day working as their is a lack of cover available in the base rosters. Every new member of staff requires a portion of their work to be covered. More staff can give you more flexibility but there is an issue where you will have too many staff to cover the days of leave required. My depot is around 100 Drivers. Each requires 28 days leave per year. Increasing the establishment level and increasing the number of staff just adds more days to be covered. We already have (at my depot) 9 Drivers off on leave at any one time and that's just rostered leave.
Following on from that there are the operational requirements. This means more staff are off at the same time and more staff need to be briefed. Semi on topic; we have just undergone 700 traction training and because the sheer volume of staff required to be trained its taken time and is still ongoing. More staff just exacerbates this. Link working is good when you can split work and reduce training requirements. Large depots suffer when there is change because of the sheer number of Drivers.
You need to remember that in other industries you can drop in staff whenever you feel and there is little difference between new and existing staff. I have a retail background and it is much more of a numbers game but there you have flexible working etc.
Hope that helps in some way.
It's been discussed at length before on this forum about the complexities of it all. There is a huge culture change that is needed.
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flymo
Established Member
You forgot passengers.
bahnause
Member
SBB doesn't have OBS in Switzerland. The train is staffed with a guard or it's DOO. There might be random ticket inspections on DOO trains. But there is a lot of security staff on DOO trains for obvious reasons, especially on Friday / Saturday nights.
The network and the Train-Platform Interface are designed for DOO operation, the train driver isn't supposed to overlook the whole train or every door before starting the train. DOO operation wasn't "just introduced", there was a clear plan and a lot of (expensive) technical upgrades to the rolling stock and the infrastructure. Most infrastructure and a lot of trains are Wheelchair accessible without help. I can't see this happening in GB at the moment.
the sniper
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Which wouldn't have made any sense given the context of that list/conversation...
Good try. :roll:
I can add a personal experience to this. After 5 years' full productivity, I moved links and needed to learn new traction and new routes. Due to the availability of staff to do the briefing and assessments, this has taken me off my roster for 4 weeks so far and we're still not done. In the meantime someone has to cover my work and work is still uncovered in my new link as I don't sign everything yet. Certainly an over supply of staff in every link would help but as Commutor says, it's not as simple as it seems.
They won't hire more drivers because of the number of passengers. If the DFT decrees there must be more trains to cater for rising demand then they may need more.
Thanks for the information. When you say it's staffed with a guard, is that the job title rathan the role, because the staff on the expresses between Zurich Flughafn and Konstanz seemed to be what is envisaged as an OBS in the UK.
I agree about the train - platform interface however and I also agree that there are clear organisational problems in the UK with the separation of Network Rail from the Operators, which militates against the kind of planned rollout that you describe.
I guess you may be referring to the 2 and 3 car units I used to use travelling between Slough and Reading. It was always reassuring to have an on board staff presence and I agree that without one the train is less secure, but as a passenger the perceived threat comes from other passengers rather than the running of the train. I do support your argument that true "DOO" (no on train staff) is ridiculous and unsafe in anything other than an exceptional situation.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
They aren't, they close the doors and dispatch, albeit using a rather dangerous procedure involving giving RA with doors still open.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
SBB (and DB) DOO relies much more heavily on the interlock, which is far less safe than the UK model which uses the interlock AND a visual check.
That seems rather similar to Queensland Rail in the Greater Brisbane area where the conductor gives two on the bell with the doors still open. Nit sure who closes the doors though as the EMUs I've seen have wing mirrors for the driver
bahnause
Member
That's a proper "guard". He is actually despatching the train. He can't close the doors though, because the rolling stock was built for DOO operations and isn't suposed to have a guard on board :roll:
It is a financial issue. The TOC in Switzerland are obliged to have step free access from 2024 at all stations and on all trains / trams (exceptions possible).
Southern Dvr
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Staff turnover is the big one here. SN has lost so many experienced and decent staff because of the way they've treated them. I've said this time and time again, there's only so far you can stretch an elastic band before it breaks.
Agreed , plus I've heard a number of my bosses over the years claim they're not over keen to recruit additional staff largely due to the hassle of covering their holidays etc.
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This still doesn't entirely make sense to me.
Yes, in the very short-term you'll need to train the new drivers and this will take the time of the driver instructors, but once this is done there's a net increase in resource.
Yes, a new driver will have 28 days where they need to be covered. But surely they add 100-200 days of working, of which 28 go into the pool of covering for other drivers on leave.
too many staff to cover the days of leave required. doesn't make any sense to me.
Yes, more staff means more needing training, but you have the flexibility for people to be away on training.
Does the cover for an experienced driver have to be a single person? Can a combination of drivers do it? If you have more people with narrower experience would you not be more likely to find a suitable combination to cover the whole route?
Whenever I read a list like this - all specified in the rule book - I think of the contrast with the road transport industry. The idea that if a trained driver moves to a new depot to drive a different make of truck on unfamiliar routes that they would be given weeks of training before they could be allowed out on their own? It's no wonder that rail freight finds it so difficult to compete except for long distance bulk haulage.
It's also no wonder that many believe driverless trains are inevitable.
Well...
Driverless trains are inevitable, regardless. The human race is the only species that actively tries to make itself redundant.
Maybe that's one of the reasons the rails are much safer than the roads.
And maybe that's why the roads have built in advantages on railways. There isn't a level playing field due to the commercial and private road lobby preventing the same level of regulation. See also the carrier agreements that forced rail to carry unprofitable freight whilst giving the roads a free pass.
Agree absolutely. ASLEF are forcing the government & rail industry to go down the driverless path. If only Aslef could agree to train drivers being as flexible & productive as bus & lorry drivers then there would be no need for driverless trains except on metro lines & reserved freight routes. There are many in ASLEF who are sensible & pragmatic, I wish they could persuade the few ASLEF dinasaurs that their obduracy will do their children & them out of train driving jobs. Look what is happening in Sydney australia. A new quite long distance commuter line is coming into service very soon without any staff aboard, because Sydney's ASLEF equivalent refused to allow DOO. Take heed! There are very close links between Australian & UK rail management.
Of course it isn't a level playing field, but the railway industry has no influence over the other end of the pitch. It can only make changes in its own half.
I know it's crazy. The slightest incident on the railway and the uproar is such that we nearly get a public enquiry, yet 10 people die every day on the roads. Somehow the deaths due to trespass, whether suicide or not, are the railway's fault. If the same rules applied on our streets we would have continuous railings and lifting barriers at the designated crossing points!
The result is that millions of tonnes of freight, and millions of people are forced to use a more dangerous and more polluting means of transport because the safe, clean one is too expensive.
The solid gold safety procedures of the railway produces a safe railway. It doesn't produce a safe transport system.
The painful question must be asked: if some of the training and assessment procedures listed in the post were dropped, it would certainly make railway operations a little less safe, but if it made them much cheaper, so that, say, rail freight became much more economical, would it make our transport system safer?
I know it's crazy. The slightest incident on the railway and the uproar is such that we nearly get a public enquiry, yet 10 people die every day on the roads. Somehow the deaths due to trespass, whether suicide or not, are the railway's fault. If the same rules applied on our streets we would have continuous railings and lifting barriers at the designated crossing points!
The result is that millions of tonnes of freight, and millions of people are forced to use a more dangerous and more polluting means of transport because the safe, clean one is too expensive.
The solid gold safety procedures of the railway produces a safe railway. It doesn't produce a safe transport system.
The painful question must be asked: if some of the training and assessment procedures listed in the post were dropped, it would certainly make railway operations a little less safe, but if it made them much cheaper, so that, say, rail freight became much more economical, would it make our transport system safer?
Wind up alert as usual. Even though I sense this is deliberately designed to be provocative, may I respond to the old chestnut of train drivers' perceived lack of flexibility:
- work 363 years a year
- work all round the clock
- work weekends (and Sundays before Sunday opening), nights, bank holidays
- have breaks at irregular intervals thus destroying attempts to eat properly
- have breaks all over the network, pretty much anywhere there's a broken toilet a chair and a kettle
- change shifts overnight
- go from lates to earlies with what's left of a Sunday in between which is not enough for the body clock to adjust
- have different book on and book off times every day as well as differing turn lengths sometimes destroying any attempt to sleep properly or exercise, or have a normal life
- frankly say goodbye to proper sleep anyway
- take most of my leave when the company says not when I choose
But you knew all this didn't you? A reminder always helps though. Yeah I feel really inflexible having got up at 2, then 2.45 then 2.30 then 4 this week, totally unable to get enough decent sleep as a result.
Doubtless the DfT and the TOCs would love us to be totally flexible, working on demand without those pesky Hidden rules (which are nowhere near as generous as people might think), not demanding silly things like adequate training and route learning, on call without extra payment, only getting paid when we actually drive a train rather than for our time as a whole. In other words, bring the "gig economy" into the railway and accelerate the race to the bottom whilst destroying safety and another raft of decent employment in the process.
As for a new line being automated, well big deal, that happens anyway. If HS2 were to be completely segregated I'd expect it to be automated. Automated is safer and more efficient, though only in the sense of consistency of driving technique. People are still needed for incidents. Just like the DLR that couldn't be halted by a strike...oh...until it was. It's a lack of investment in the railway that means technology hasn't changed things as much as it might.
Flexible lorry drivers hasn't stopped work into self driving road freight has it? Or self driving cabs or delivery drones. It doesn't matter how many compromises or concessions we make to the people who own and run everything. They will always want to take more from us. When they decide it's worth the investment, that it's cheaper to spend on plant or tech instead of those silly humans, they will automate or transfer jobs overseas, regardless of how much the workforce has attempted to save itself.
Which bit do you want to drop? Evacuation? Wrong direction working? The route knowledge that enables a driver to go at 125mph and still know when to brake for a station they won't see until they can see the whites of the passengers' eyes? And dunno if you've noticed, but trains are big heavy things that don't stop in a hurry - hence regulated passage - they can't be driven line of sight - because if they did, they would have no advantage at all.
Dunno about drivers but there are a heck of a lot of passengers that support your ASLEF staff, and believe that there should be 2 staff members on board. The Watford incident proving exactly why.
Of course Southern boast that they can run trains without guards now, and one of the reasons given was to give a greater ability to recover from incidents as they would only need to find one staff member for a train.
That worked really well yesterday didn't it? Total chaos across the network for hours after an incident. I am prepared to bet that yesterday there were significant numbers of staff who went above and beyond their hours whether they were drivers, guards, OBS or station staff in order to assist passengers to get home.
Yesterday just demonstrated that in spite of a number of occasions where a significant part of the mainline gets shut Southerns management just cannot plan for it, cannot manage it and cannot recover the disruption.
Disruption from yesterdays events annoy passengers even more than the very few occasions in the past where trains have been cancelled because a 2nd crew member is missing.
Rather than blaming the dedicated staff members management need to be listening to their concerns and with the appalling reputation that Southern now has need to be working with them to rebuild confidence in the company. ASLEF have shown a willingness to compromise I understand, they have come up with suggestions on how the driver can control the train, and where they believe they need assistance.
How many passenger minutes are lost through incidents that could have been dealt with by a guard or 2nd staff member? There are daily camera incidents reported on social media.
Driverless trains might come one day but there is going to have to be a huge investment in the network first so I think we can prepare for a long wait.
As a matter of interest how many lorry drivers drive their trucks at the same speed irrespective of whether its dark, foggy etc? How many lorry drivers don't slow down for bends because they dont know what is round them?
Train drivers need to do route knowledge because they do not drive on line of sight.
The actual process of driving a train and getting it to stop and start might be simple but, as ever, thats not the difficult part. The skill comes in stopping it in the right place time and time again irrespective of the conditions.
Leaving aside the knowledge of what to do when it all goes wrong.
It isn't expensive because it chooses to be! Government policy is what creates the character of the railway. Lack of historical investment means that it never has the chance to keep a rolling programme of innovation going to reduce costs, forever fire fighting to keep the thing running which is more expensive in the long term. Yet again we've seen this happen with the cuts to the electrification programme - if there's a sizeable gap before it begins, the expertise moves on and has to be recruited again and the plant has to be reacquired. Costs go up in the meantime. Or on the ops side, the franchise system creates no real incentive to do anything other than try to cut costs to boost shareholder dividends, because it's short term, inefficient management processes get bailed out and the only sanctions come when the TOC asks for more subsidy or can't make their premium payment. Rather than overhaul clunky systems, the blunt instrument of cutting staff that aren't required by the franchise spec is deployed. Meanwhile the government now insists that 50% of the cost of running the railway is met by ticket sales, which is a method it doesn't deploy for roads, education, healthcare or any other bit of social and business infrastructure. So ticket prices creep up. Finally the RSSB, ORR and RAIB set the standards for training, safety etc, more stringently than the free for all on the roads of private cars, exhausted delivery drivers etc. Ultimately the trend has been inexorably rising costs for rail and falling costs for road - because politicians are gutless and run from the road lobby. We could choose as a nation to do things vastly differently and have a safe and cheaper railway, but at election time it's always the same - NHS, tax, education.
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