Morning:
8°c
THIS has been the worst weather-related transport chaos in living memory.
Admittedly, it was the worst snowfall for a couple of decades and fell on a Sunday night, when traffic is light, allowing it to settle. However, it is still pretty inexcusable that London's transport system fell apart so completely yesterday morning.
There had been warnings of blizzards on the way for several days and Transport for London assures us that it has well-established contingency plans. Yet every London Underground line, apart from the Waterloo & City and Victoria, which run completely in tunnel, were affected. Worst, there were no buses at all in the morning and very few for the whole day.
It is right for officials to argue that there is no point spending tens of millions on snow ploughs and other equipment that will be used once in a generation. But that is no excuse for lack of preparation. The excuse for not running buses is particularly thin.
We are told that they could not get out of depots because the local roads were iced up and were the responsibility of local boroughs.
But if there are contingency plans, surely they should take this fact into account? Cooperation between TfL and the councils should have ensured that link roads to depots were given priority by gritters and snowploughs. After all, the main roads along which buses run for the most part were clear. Routes could have been curtailed to ensure that at least some service was offered.
In fact, in the complex transport structure in London, it was the private operators who decided not to risk putting their buses on the roads. One can detect the heavy hand of the Health and Safety mafia here. Even Mayor Boris Johnson seems to have been taken in as he said on television how dangerous it is to have a 12-tonne bus on icy roads. Yes Boris, but they do it elsewhere in the world.
On the trains, again it is understandable that there were difficulties, especially as staff could not get in on the roads to drive trains or operate signal boxes. However, at times like this people need information: the National Rail website foundered in the first snow drift. It is not good enough for the Association of Train Operating Companies to say there was unprecedented demand.
Accidents, bad weather, floods and sudden increases in demand should be factored into the software systems as they are bound to happen at some time. Sure, it would cost a few bob, but the train operators have been happily coining it over the past few years as passengers have flocked to the railways. It is the sort of investment that any responsible company would have made.
There has been a total absence of a "the show must go on" spirit - and the reason is clear. The trains and buses are run by private companies more concerned with not getting sued by a passenger who has slipped on an icy platform or fallen when a bus has skidded, rather than making sure that London keeps moving.
Reader views (21)
"How about some Minimum Customer Service Standards!"
What i find shambolic is how little emphasis is put on simple things like communication with the customer. No one expects miracles. Heck if it snows it snows and how the authorities deal with its impact on the transport infrastructure (or not) is an issue we will continue to chew on. However, withholding information and in many cases blatantly hiding from the travelling public in incidences of crisis is condescending and should be punished with some form of fine.
In the recent Eurostar debacle i understand from the press that there were tourists waiting in the broken down train for several hours without even such much as a notice about what was happening. Very similarly, last years BA strike saw people queuing for hours for what turned out to be cancelled flights without even so much as a peep out of BA customer service. What neanderthals!! They spend millions in advertising and then behave like this at crunch time.
I'm proposing that the EU impose minimum customer services standards for all public transport. What say we all!!
- Ron Bourne, London, 22/12/2009 00:35
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The buses were taken off because the bus companies are too scared of the inevitable claims from passengers when said buses slide into things.
- Les, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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The DLR kept on running, even though it's mostly above ground. What did the staff there do to ensure the service was operating? Were there trains running through the night of Sunday/Monday to keep the lines clear? How did the DLR's conductors get into work? Some lessons for other operators, I think.
- Alan Burkitt-Gray, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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So most of you want London to spend a very large amount of money to protect you against something that MAY happen every 15 years? I do not think so. New York expects and gets snow every year. So does Madrid, Berlin and most Northern European capitals so they are prepared and they take the relevant actions and pay the price.
I live in Torrevieja and guess what the major industry is? The extraction of sea salt to put on the roads of the World. They are working flat out and the trucks are backed up for kms and out in the bay at least 3 salt boats wait their turn to take it to Canada and Norway etc.
If you get snow on a regular annual basis you can plan. If you don't then you waste money preparing for another non-happening. Bendy buses do not help either.
- Ayliff Mcnab, Spain, 21/12/2009 23:35
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The buses were taken off the roads by order of TFL not the private bus companies. If said bus company made the decision they wouldn't get paid by TFL and could possibly lose the contract. Get your facts straight.
- Dave, London NW, 21/12/2009 23:35
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The total incompetance of Transport for London is mind boggling, as is the inaction of the Councils ,who took virtually no action to ease the strain on the long-plagued Londoner commuters.The Mayor's comment that he thought that the respective authorities had coped rather well, is simply inane, a comment which defies belief. It is the law in Germany,that every vehicle is fitted with "winter tyres" in the season, and it is very effective, and much safer for everyone.Yes, it costs a new set of tyres, but the garage will even store the wheels free of charge to save inconvenience and space.Once more,London becomes the laughing stock of the rest of the World.All of the respective responsible bodies should have a good, hard look at this, and stop telling us that "it's not worth having snow-clearing equipment because it doesn't snow very often". That's like having an ocean liner with no lifeboats, because they don't sink very often. What a terrible exhibition of incompetance, nonchalance, and plain ignorance.The cost to London Pride is enormous, and the embarrassment and shame to this great City, immeasurable.
- Ray King, kassel germany, 21/12/2009 23:35
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A constructive suggestion.
In parts of the world where it snows heavily and often, they have "snow priority routes" that are gritted and snowploughed before the rest. Could we not have these in London? A carefully planned set of snow-emergency routes radiating from bus garages and connecting with the stations where the tube first emerges from underground, that *will* be kept clear whatever happens to the rest of the roads.
Also it's silly that underground lines were closed because all the trains were stuck in sidings above ground. Again, could planning for snow not include parking some trains at stations in the underground parts of the network? This might require having staff sleeping in the underground stations on double pay to man them the next morning, but as a one-off cost that should be affordable!
Of course next time the weather forecast will probably get it wrong ....
- Nigel, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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Mr Wolmar obviously did not travel on a bus in the snow. I caught the last bus from Paddington to Liverpool Street on Sunday night at just after midnight when the order came out for all buses to return to depots. The driver needed to work hard to keep the vehicle on course as every time we stopped the front end slid sideways. The problem was the roads. There was no evidence anywhere along the route that snow clearance was taking place or even had started. I then walked for an hour from Liverpool Street to Dalston - again no sign of road clearance. I would have thought I would have met at least one sweeper/gritter!
- Patrick Griffin, Dalston, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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Oh puleeeze! Can't we have ONE day off every decade or so on account of the weather?
- Sarahn, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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So what, most people enjoyed the snow day and I got a bit of exercise walking to work. Nothing to get up in arms about.
Stop worrying and enjoy yourself a little more, Chris!
- St, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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OOH it's November again - change the tyres on the buses to winter ones - also on the lorries and to most private cars" This only happens in other countries. If you have an accident in parts of Europe in winter and you are using summer tyres you would have problems with your insurance company.
- Charles, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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We are an international laughing stock,again.And Boris is proving just as useless as his predecessor would have been.Neither the private nor the public sectors have a clue.
- Mikes, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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Mayor Boris was on the air last night claiming that it would not be a worthwhile investment for London to invest in snow ploughs. In New York City every sanitation truck becomes a snow plough when necessary and the city is moving again after 10 times the snowfall we experienced yesterday. Furthermore, in America, mayors who presided over such a catastrophic failure in public services would be booted out of office. Just another example of our public services in inaction - nobody is ever accountable, nobody is ever to blame.
- Jonathan Miller, Alfold, England, 21/12/2009 23:35
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I agree wholeheartedy with this well-balanced article.
I was forced to drive a car to work right across London and there was no reason I can see why buses sohuld have stopped running if driven carefully; nor, wth approriate planning, trains and tubes. If there were staff shortages, employees should have gone by cab to their depots-- no shortage of them around, functioning pretty much as normal.
- Tom Reid, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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Just to add that Paris suffered exactly the same amount of snow and buses ran throughout Monday. TfL has a LOT of explaining to do in my book.
- Marianne, SW France, 21/12/2009 23:35
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I work as a train driver - it took me nearly 3 hours to drive into work on Monday but I arrived on time as I had planned ahead. Every single member of staff arrived for work, although some of them were delayed en-route.
The roads were ungritted and the trains were mostly suspended.
No surprise there - we all know that the trains will fail instantly in any significant snowfall, due to the weakness of the third-rail power supply system.
Perhaps our government would care to invest in the public transport network, rather than handing over hundreds of billions to corrupt banking institutions.
- Jim, London, UK, 21/12/2009 23:35
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If you are stupid enought to try buses, trains ,planes and tubes when it snows--then you have now been reminded that they are businesses and not public services.
For those who totally depend on them--take them to court for non delivery.
- William Grierson, Kimpton-UK, 21/12/2009 23:35
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Like thousands of others, I was unable to get into the City yesterday. Can the City of London seriously consider itself a major global financial player when a few inches of snow brings it to its knees.
As for the authorities not wishing to spend tens of millions on snow ploughs etc, yesterday's non production cost the UK £1 billion. Boris - do the maths!
- Richard Muller, London/Zurich Switzerland, 21/12/2009 23:35
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Ray,
Winter tyres (with steel studs) have a very significant cost, and not just the cost of buying them and storing them. The steel studs chew up the road surface, and greatly increase the amount that needs to be spent on road maintenance. Again, this is an idea that makes sense somewhere like Stockholm where it snows for weeks every winter, and makes no sense in London where it snows once in a decade.
Ocean liners have lifeboats because they are a small extra cost. Airliners do not carry parachutes, because the cost of flying that extra weight is quite high, and the circumstances where they would save lives are rare. Just like snow in London!
- Nigel, London, 21/12/2009 23:35
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Dont get worked up about it, the transport authorities, the governmentcouldnt give a fig for Joe Soap,long as he pays his taxes, dies before his pensions due,[1day]smokes,drinks and buys petrol, to keep those foundations of the british tax system going, and what does he do, grins and soldiers on, only when theres a silly little man, named adolf or napoleon, standing opposite Dover, does the country find its balls. Get rid of the scum that purport to govern, whilst pocket lining, and lying penalise heads of companies or bodies found to have run up huge losses, whilst getting the fat pay offs and gross pensions. Start at home Joe!!
- Tobius, lydenburg south africa, 21/12/2009 23:35
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As a nation, we have a choice - be like the eurozone countries and and pay higher taxes to fund good public services or continue our anglo-american model of paying lower taxes that only fund less than good public services.
- Mick, London, UK, 21/12/2009 23:35
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