{latest in a developing series on Smashing Paradigms}
For my story-telling explanation of the definition of a Paradigm, see “What is a Paradigm“.
One way of defining a paradigm is “an unconsciously held belief that limits us from fresh thinking” or “we’ve always done it this way”
(c) smasherofficial.com
Today I’ll talk about two paradigms to smash. One is the idea of abolition of railway timetables, the other that of revolutionising rail ticket pricing.
First, timetables. Trains run on time. Well, most of the time. The driving force behind this since the very early days of rail travel has been the railway timetable. All systems and processes centre around it.
In fact, in 1840 the Great Western Railway introduced the concept of “Railway time” in order to have uniform times at each station, all on “London time”, co-ordinate from the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, from where all time around the world is still set.
So, since 1840 trains have run based on consistent times and from railway timetables.
It was therefore hugely refreshing this week to hear Sir Peter Hendy, Chair of Network Rail, foreshadow the end of the railway timetable. No more railway timetables ? What does he mean ? “We’ve always done it this way” (paradigm alert !).
You see, before his role with Network Rail he headed up Transport for London, home of the “Tube”, the London Underground. As he noted in his speech for the George Bradshaw address (pdf here), the Victoria line on the Tube has 36 trains per hour at peak times. Anyone who rides the tube knows there are no timetables, nor would we want one. Instead, on each platform there is simply a display that indicates how many minutes until the next trains arrive.
The following is the section of his speech addressing the change to such frequent trains , which I’ve highlighted for elements around culture and systems change, with energetic words also highlighted. At the end, he then talks about ticketing, so read on and I will address that part too ! :
To deliver this, that railway {Tube} needed a whole system change.
Digital signalling of course. But far more than that, new homogenous trains with the doors opening in the same place on each platform every time. Asset upgrades and renewal followed by radical changes in maintenance methods shoehorned completely into four and half hours a night, and now on only five nights a week with all night services on the other two.
Enhancement of, and reliance on, the Emergency Response Unit, to attend failures and
incidents by road under blue lights, driven by the British Transport Police, counting the
seconds to get the trains moving.
Practicing standard tasks with multi-skilled teams with materials and tools stored at strategic points. None of this is unfamiliar in a metro environment but has to become more common elsewhere; the pace of the change will have to accelerate.
And, these things have to be, will be, there on Thameslink in May and on Crossrail when it opens.
And it isn’t just Network Rail’s business. The whole of the operating culture has to change.
Train crew depots strategically placed, driver changeover minimised on in-service trains.
Same crews taking trains in and out of major termini with minimal platform dwell times. (Go and look at Elephant & Castle on the Bakerloo line; contrast it with Waterloo!).
Dare I say it, driver controlled operation (DCO) to minimise crew mismatches and for faster door opening sequences at every station (one of the best reasons for the abolition of the guard on LU in the 1980s was higher train mileage and faster station operation).
In compensation, far more and more energetic staff on platforms helping to get more and more passengers to get on and off and yes, even saying “this train is ready to depart”, not when everyone is on but when it’s time to go (because there’s another one behind). And cheerful drivers encouraging the same thing – any of you remember Mary, on the Bakerloo line?
Mike Brown and Mark Wild’s happy Customer Service Assistants, at Oxford Circus and
Victoria and all over the Tube, are making people’s day better by making the service run well and making the passengers happy too.
And on the tube, where did many of them come from? They came out of the dullest
customer service job, selling tickets from behind a glass wall. And now they are out in the open having fun, interacting with the customers, and making the service work.
This was enabled by a ticketing system the customers didn’t need human help to use.
Contactless ticketing, and automatic refunds so customers trust the system with the sales
staff moved onto gate lines and platforms to help everyone including those with disabilities board the trains and get on their way.
Wouldn’t that be a radical change for the big railway?
It will need educated passengers. Do people run for the Jubilee line now? No! They know
the next one is coming…
…We need to think what this means for our customers. They’re clever people. Increasingly they will measure their journey not by timetable adherence but by regularity – average wait –and by journey length and by these in total.
When Bristol Temple Meads and Bristol Parkway both become 15 minute services, will
people look at a timetable? Unlikely. These services will be more frequent that the outer end of the Metropolitan Line!
The ticketing implications are major, but as I’ve said, reform is overdue anyway in my view. The ticketing system should be led by passenger behaviour, not act as a constraint to it.
“The ticketing system should be led by passenger behaviour, not act as a constraint to it.”
Tomorrow I am going to visit a friend outside London. The train take 1 hour and 20 minutes from one of the London terminals and I will be travelling “super off peak” at very quiet times, late Saturday afternoon and mid afternoon Sunday.
The ticket price when I looked it up over 10 days in advance ? £64 (about $100). To ride in an empty train on the weekend.
Over recent years I have often travelled to and from Scotland from London. It is about 400 miles, flying time about an hour and train about four and a half hours. However, “door to door” from central London to central Edinburgh the time difference in total is minimal. I’d much rather simply sit in comfort on the train, yet rarely do I do that. It is sometimes literally half the price or less to go through the hassle of taking a train or tube to the airport in good time for airport security (let alone checked luggage) etc etc.
I worked in the airline business as long ago as the early 90s at a time when increases in computer power allowed newer airlines to radically reshape their pricing. At that time I worked on a project with Virgin Atlantic at the time on yield management, and the competitive edge this gave them in filling their aircraft at optimum yields was amazing.
I then took a lot of this experience to the hotel business and had a LOT of fun creating competitive edge when Expedia came in to the market in the early 2000s and gave hoteliers online and real time freedom to manage yields (at a time when it was typically done by back and forth faxes!).
Fast forward and the new budget airlines in the UK and Europe have radically dropped the cost of air travel whilst still being profitable (prior to that time virtually no airlines made profits, ever!). This has also freed up people to travel far more and on short notice. Radical indeed.
However, we are now in 2018 and UK railways still have hugely archaic pricing and, as far as I can see, virtually no yield management. Result ? Outside of peak times, plenty of empty seats on almost every train, everywhere, every time.
If ticketing could be revolutionised and yields maximised all day long, each day of the week, then both peak time tickets could drop in price, plus more and more passengers could work remotely at least part of the time and market forces would adjust yields and prices outside of “rush hour”.
Ah well, £64 round trip for a 1:20 train ride. I thought about going by bus for under £20 return but that was a little too much for me, even though £64 feels like a constraint !
“The ticketing system should be led by passenger behaviour, not act as a constraint to it.”
Sir Peter can act on the idea of timetables to some degree by systems change at Network Rail. It will be interesting to see if (another radical idea!) market forces come into play with ticket sales across the network and perhaps some new player will come in and implement AI for yield management ?
#Smashing Paradigms