Category: Transport

#didsburydoubles – can we get Metrolink to reinstate double trams to East Didsbury?

The summer is over, and it’s time to get back to work.

For many of us in Manchester, we breathe a sigh of relief as it also signals the reconnection of the Northern and Southern parts of the Metrolink tram network after almost two months of no service through the City Centre.

Our messed up commutes could return to something looking like normality, or so we thought…

Last week, Metrolink announced their new service patterns for the re-joined network, no longer constrained by the single-track contraflow system through the St Peter’s Square worksite:

“People of Didsbury rejoice! For we are improving your service, with trams every 6 minutes!”

Now here’s the catch and small print:

Note that while there are twice as many trams, 
they will only be half as long, 
and half of them will terminate at Deansgate, 
on the extreme south side of the city centre, 
which will mean they are no use to some of you.

So, while we get more frequent trams, at least as far as Deansgate, the overall capacity on the line has stayed the same, yet we were experiencing busy and crowded trams when they were double trams every 12 minutes, and we’ve now actually got reduced capacity on cross-city journeys.

We’re already seeing complaints about crowding and reduction of tram length:

So I’ve decided to start tweeting and hashtagging when I observe overcrowding due to single tram operation on the Didsbury line, using the hashtag #didsburydoubles and suggest those similarly affected do the same.

We then make it easier to track and hopefully get this trending on social media and get Metrolink & TfGM to sit up, listen to their users and understand how we actually use their tram network.

On paper the capacity is the same, so what’s happened?

Metrolink planners have made an assumption that passengers will always take the first tram and change where necessary.

Taking a look at my more usual trip into town, I’m normally heading to Market Street or Shudehill:

  • Under the old service pattern there was a direct double tram every 12 minutes.
  • Under the new service pattern there is a direct single tram every 12 minutes, or I can take the Deansgate tram, which runs in between the direct tram, and change at Deansgate.

I now have to make a decision, do I take whatever turns up first and proceed accordingly, or do I always wait for the direct?

I’m missing a vital piece of information if I take the Deansgate tram and change: How long will I need to wait at Deansgate for a Market Street/Shudehill tram?

What I don’t have is the planned sequence through Deansgate. I know that each “route” is planned to have a tram every 6 minutes, and it repeats on a 12 minute cycle. I just don’t know the order they are meant to come in, because Metrolink does not publish that information.

If the tram terminating at Deansgate is immediately followed by a cross-city Altrincham – Bury tram, then I’m fine. My end-to-end journey time remains basically the same, I have to change once, and don’t have to wait long.

But what if the sequence of trams means that I’m waiting, let’s say 4 minutes, for the Altrincham – Bury direct tram? Or worse still, my Didsbury – Deansgate tram arrives at Deansgate platform just in time to see the Altrincham – Bury tram pulling away?

I don’t gain anything and I may as well have taken the direct tram, and who’s to say I’ll be able to even get on to the next tram, that might be busy too?

They have not accounted for human nature: where a direct service exists we will prefer to take it.

Remember that I am a transport geek as well. I’ve studied this stuff, and have a degree from Aston Uni in Transport Management. The thought process above comes naturally to me. Heh… Maybe TfGM/Metrolink could hire me to tell them the blindingly obvious?

An average person won’t even bother going though the thought process above. They will just wait for the direct tram.

On outbound journeys in the evening commute, this situation is made even worse. People are less inclined to change on the way home, because the trams are already at their fullest in the City centre.

One simply daren’t take the first cross-city tram from Shudehill or Market Street and expect to change at Deansgate or Cornbrook because that will mean trying to board an already crowded tram.

This means evening commutes will likely be worse than morning commutes because people will almost certainly wait for the direct.

When the Didsbury line was first opened, there were waves of complaints because the use of the line outstripped Metrolink’s predictions, rapidly leading to the decision to run Didsbury trams as doubles, and this remained until this week.

It’s time to make sure TfGM and Metrolink hear our voices again.

We should at least have the through trams operating as double trams, so that cross-city capacity is restored to what it was before the St Peter’s Square works were completed.

This is how the Altrincham and Bury lines work – a 6 minute headway with alternate trams, the cross-city trams, as doubles.

If you experience an uncomfortably crowded journey on the East Didsbury line, or you have to let a tram depart without you onboard because it arrived already full, please tweet about it and use the #didsburydoubles hashtag.

Driving in Malta – signs of madness?

Number two on the list of things not to do in Malta, according to my guidebook, is drive.

To a Maltese driver, it seems that road markings, signs, signals, and speed limits are advisory rather than mandatory. This means you need your wits about you.

That bit I actually found easy to cope with by reading the road, anticipating well ahead and driving assertively myself, or assertive as I could be in a tiny Kia with a sewing machine of an engine. Hills, of which Malta has many, meant changing down to 2nd and flooring it, thanks partly to the two suitcases in the boot. Fortunately, many natives also go for the small car too, so you know they are almost in the same boat as you. However, the locals have one big head start… Continue reading “Driving in Malta – signs of madness?”

UK ATC Delays – a case of “Computer says No”

Many folks will have read about the ATC delays being experienced in the UK today.

Sadly, a lot of the explanations have been rather technical, not surprising since they are coming from industry experts or from those working for ATC or airlines who have a good understanding of the industry and the jargon that goes with it (e.g. “sectors”, “flow control”, “slot restrictions”, etc.).

Air Traffic Control Principles: To maintain a good margin of safety, an air traffic controller can only manage (“work“) a certain number of aircraft at the same time, taking into account the amount of communication they need to make on the radio with the planes they are working and the phase of flight those planes are in (e.g. takeoff, landing, climb, descent, cruise).

To manage the amount of traffic the UK airspace needs to handle on a daily basis, the skies are carved up into areas known as “sectors“, slotting together like a big 3D jigsaw.

Sectors: A sector handling traffic which is “in the cruise” – has taken off, finished climbing and is in level flight in the general direction of it’s destination – can generally handle more aircraft than a sector which is working traffic that is descending toward it’s destination.

For example, it takes more work to direct an aircraft to line up with the runway in order to land (several radio transmissions over 10-20 minutes), especially in the cloudy weather we get in the UK, than to tell it to fly in a straight line for 200 miles (one radio transmission in half an hour).

As an aircraft goes on it’s journey, it’s handed off from controller to controller.

The pieces of this jigsaw are set up for the “worst case scenario” – the busiest time of the day, when the most aircraft are flying in the UK and the most Air Traffic Controllers are needed on duty.

Control Positions: The consoles you see the controllers working at, which include screens with radar displays showing where the planes are, and display output which helps the controllers organise the traffic they are responsible for, make a record of their decisions, and communicate with neighbouring controllers. This includes the “telephones” and the VHF radio system for speaking to the aircraft, which are integrated into the console at the control position.

Merging sectors (Band-boxing): At night, when less planes are in the UK’s skies, the traffic is less dense, and fewer controllers are needed. These sectors are combined together, known in industry jargon as band-boxing.

The radars, radios and telephone lines for all the different sectors being combined are re-routed to the control position working the band-boxed sector. This is done using control software, and I suspect it’s this control software which has suffered a failure and become stuck in “night mode”.

It can’t “un-bandbox” the sectors, and re-route the radio and telephone lines to the right place in the control room.

The Net Effect: Because of the failure, it’s not possible to un-bandbox the merged sectors, and delegate control of the airspace to a greater number of controllers. Going back to my first point, a controller can only work a certain amount of planes while maintaining an acceptable margin of safety.

If it’s not possible to have more controllers working the traffic, they simply have to make sure there are fewer planes in the same bit of sky at the same time. To do this, ATC uses a process known as Flow Control, which consists of setting very specific (to within a few minutes) take-off times for aircraft. Because we know a plane is going to fly at a certain speed, at a requested height, along a known route, ATC can work out where a plane should be at a given time, based on it’s take-off time.

If there is too much traffic expected in the same place at the same time, ATC will work out the soonest it could safely work the traffic and then work that backward into take-off times for each plane – the slot time you hear pilots refer to.

Therefore when you hear a pilot talk about missing our slot, they don’t necessarily mean missing their time to use the runway at the departure airport, but their allotted time through some point in the air, maybe a couple of hours into the future.

Obviously, when something like this happens, the flow control and slot restrictions become more severe, also you can’t just go on delaying flights indefinitely. Airlines must also try and do their bit to reduce the strain on the available ATC resources, and they will therefore start making tactical cancellations – for instance reducing the number of flights on a given route, especially if it’s a high-frequency route with a plane every hour or two. Maybe they will cancel 50% of the flights and transfer passengers to those planes which will still operate. This frees up a slot in the airspace to be used for a flight which runs less regularly and makes sure that route is still served.

Where airlines have a fleet of planes of different sizes, so these are the larger carriers such as BA, they may try and combine two flights together on one single larger aircraft (e.g. two Airbus A319s onto a single Boeing 767). Again, this makes more space in the skies.

If you’re travelling today, I hope you get where you’re going eventually. You’ll need a lot of patience though, and resign yourself to being delayed. Sadly, being delayed is one risk you take whenever you travel, and by whatever method you choose.

If you don’t really need to make your journey today, contact your airline and offer to travel another day, they may appreciate having one less person to carry and you will release your seat for someone else that might really need it.

Latest Security Theatre: Please Remove Your Glasses

Heading back home from giving a talk at the INEX meeting in Dublin on Friday 20th September, I came across a fairly ridiculous piece of security theatre.

Welcome to Dublin Airport, by forzadagro on Flickr.
Welcome to Dublin Airport. Now remove your dignity, please.

My frequent flyer status with BA entitled me to go through the Fast-track security lane and avoid the 15-20 minute queue of glum-looking Ryanair passengers. There was a chap in front of me who had just checked in for the same BA flight.

Without seemingly flinching, the security officer supervising the loading of belongings into the x-ray machine asked the man in front to remove his spectacles and put them through the machine! I was stunned to hear this, and I think, so was he. In over 15 years of regular flying, this is the first time I’ve ever heard this be asked of someone wearing spectacles (i.e. not sunglasses worn inside). Good for him, he politely declined this seemingly random request, explaining that if he did that, he would be unable to see.

Being as blind as a bat without my glasses, I was ready to similarly decline if this security lady had any ideas about asking me to give up my glasses. Fortunately, I think she’d realised her seemingly random and possibly frivolous request had overstepped the mark, she didn’t ask me to do the same.

Now, I personally would find such a request undignified. Unable to see where I’m going clearly, I would be placed at increased risk of having an accident. It’s likely I would need to be helped through security, and helped to find my glasses once through the X-ray machine.

I don’t really see how it’s different to making a person with a prosthetic leg remove it for inspection and hop through the magnetometer arch on one leg, and I don’t see airport security guards forcing people to do that.

I put it down to poor staff training and the general ridiculousness that this security theatre is “good for us”, but I’m still pretty shocked that such a loss of dignity could even be contemplated in the first place.

I will be contacting DAA and asking them to respond and explain what their policy is regarding screening of people wearing glasses.

£75k fine a drop in the ocean for First Group

Train operator First Capital Connect has just been fined £75,000 by a UK judge regarding an incident in which up to 700 passengers were stuck for over 3 hours on a train, partially in a tunnel, with no toilets, no ventilation and minimal lighting.

To a conglomerate such as First, which reported over £200m profits in 2012, this has to be a drop in the ocean, and is an absolutely derisory amount compared to the  – just over £100 per stranded passenger.

It also begs the question about who is going to pay for this. First Group shareholders? Unlikely. It feels more likely to come out of our pockets, as fare increases, reduced franchise payments to the Treasury, or increased subsidy from the DfT.

We can’t change the “token” fine imposed by the judge – it should probably have had an extra couple of zeros on the end, really – but what might be reasonable is an assurance from the First Capital Connect MD David Statham or Group CEO Tim O’Toole that this fine will ring-fenced, such that it is paid entirely out of group surplus, and must not be allowed to impact the travelling public at large.

Better still, maybe they could pay it out of their no doubt generous bonuses, given the buck stops with them?

I’m also wondering how much has actually been learned from this incident, given the “analysis paralysis” that seems to affect rail operating incidents at the moment?

Heathrow – where clean loos are an inconvenience…

My partner came back from South Africa this morning, and had asked if I could go and collect her from Heathrow.

Nipping to the Gents in the T5 arrivals hall was a mixture of what I can only describe as unpleasantness crossed with a few surreal moments.

I had to try about 4 stalls before I found one which didn’t have one or all of the following:

  • Urine sprayed all over the floor, seat and toilet pan.
  • Pubic hair stuck to the seat and toilet pan.
  • Dirty shoe prints on the toilet seat.
  • Diarrhoea sprayed all over the toilet and seat.
  • Faeces on the toilet seat.
  • No toilet paper.

Even the one I ended up using had to be swabbed down a bit first.

While looking for an (almost) acceptable stall, I came across a guy in the middle of emptying his bowels, sat with the toilet door wide open, with his luggage on a trolley in front of it, so that “he didn’t let his belongings out of his sight”.

I accept that some people have different toilet culture to us Brits, but this was getting quite bizarre, as well as inconvenient.

More than half the sinks did not seem to have soap in the dispensers, took trying 4 sinks before I found one with soap, and many of the hand dryers did not work (and had signs saying this was the case, in some cases).

I know public toilets aren’t always the best places on Earth, but this was a truly disgusting experience.

Why are these toilets so unloved?

I do wonder if they are cleaned and maintained by a minimum wage, zero hours employee, working for an outsourced cleaning contractor, who seems to have a very different idea of “clean” to you and me, that quite simply doesn’t care as long as they get paid?

Providing a clean and properly working facility is part of your brand. Why allow your brand to be smeared by such a lack of care and attention?

Welcome to Britain, eh?

Third Runway, or not Third Runway?

Hot news today is Heathrow Airport’s third runway plans. It seems there’s some realisation that a “Boris Island” won’t be built early enough to satisfy the needs of the South East’s demand for landing slots, and something needs to be done now rather than in 20-odd years.

There is a perception that London lags behind Amsterdam Schiphol, Paris Charles De Gaulle or Frankfurt, in the sense that it’s not an “airline hub” of the same magnitude, and dear old London Town is being left behind.

If anyone has been through any of the above airports recently, I’m not entirely sure that being like them is something we should be aspiring to!

I’ve already made my views known about Frankfurt‘s recent redevelopments, trying to make it less painful than before, and still managing to miss the target.

Anyone who flies to Amsterdam often enough will have experienced the mind-numbingly long taxi to or from their relatively new runway, which far enough away to be built in a completely different town to the airport itself. You would be forgiven for thinking you’re driving to the UK, as the taxi time is often as long as the flight itself, unless you’re lucky enough that the prevailing wind lets you take off and land closer to the terminal.

As for Charles De Gaulle… I’ll just give you a Gallic shrug.

While Heathrow is BA’s “hub”, it’s not really a hub operation in the sense of a US air carrier. Flights don’t arrive and depart in deliberately orchestrated waves, purposely designed to connect, such as Delta’s operations in Atlanta. BA’s hub operation is more by accident, because of the sheer volume of the operation, rather than schedule design. Flights “happen” to connect, rather than do so by design.

Following the effective breakup of the BAA, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted are now owned by different operators, and from reading this BBC article each of them seem to be vying for a bit of the cherry, while Boris would like to demolish Heathrow entirely.

What it’s left me wondering is why there is a complete lack of joined up approach?

Danger Will Robinson! Radical thinking…

In terms of land and environmental concerns such as noise, a 2nd runway at Gatwick seems to be an easy win when compared against putting a 3rd runway at Heathrow.

Given that we’re seemingly hell bent on building HS2 (let’s ignore the fact that less than half of the money being spent on HS2 could revolutionise rail in the North of England) , wouldn’t it be eminently sensible to extend it such that it touches Heathrow and extends South to Gatwick? Use the train as a complementary form of transport to the train, rather than as a competitor.

It could then serve a dual-purpose of making it more convenient for those in the Midlands to access Heathrow and Gatwick, while also handling connecting traffic between Gatwick and Heathrow.

What would the Gatwick to Heathrow travel time be on such a train? About 20-25 minutes? I know some airports where it can take just as long to transfer between terminals, or to get from departure lounge to gate!

Might it even be possible to provide trains, or designated sections of trains, for “sterile transit” between the airports, without the need to officially enter the UK?

Yes, this will involve taking on the fearsome NIMBYs of Surrey, but isn’t it all for the “greater good”?

Should we ever decide to build “Boris Island” or devastate Hoo with a big International airport, it’s close enough to HS1 to be hooked up to that. We can offer fast train connections into Central London, and maybe even to France or Brussels from the airport. Just think, it might be preferable to fly in to Boris Island then get the train, if you’re travelling to Lille!

But, as I say, that would require some joined-up thinking. Something we need to get better at.

Why can’t all parcel deliveries be like this?

Today I received a delivery of a consignment from Amazon. Sounds relatively trivial, right? Why am I blogging about something so commonplace?

Because the parcel not only arrived on the day I expected it, but at the time I expected it.

People often slag off parcel companies, and with good reason. Ask around (or look online) and you hear horror stories of fragile items being thrown over fences or gates, items being left out in the rain, items arriving damaged, or the dreaded outcome of being left a calling card when you had actually stayed in all day to receive the parcel.

Amazon chose to ship via DPD, who I’ve not got much experience with. All I can say having received the delivery is “Please can you use them every time”.

Once they had a waybill open for the package, I got an email and a text message informing me of the consignment number, and giving me the expected delivery date – along with options (via SMS or Online) to rearrange delivery to a neighbour, or a different day, or arrange collection.

The parcel was easy to track on their website, with details of which stage in the process the consignment was.

This morning, I got an email and message when the delivery van left the depot, not only confirming that the package was out for delivery but what time I could expect the delivery – I was given as a one hour window, and again, options to have the item left with a neighbour, delivered on a different day, or be collected.

What a massive help. You could plan your day around when the delivery was expected, and what’s more, they kept to their estimate – arriving about 10-15 minutes into the delivery window.

I’m really impressed that a parcels courier has been able to properly design harness it’s business IT systems, automation and processes to deliver such a great experience. Why can’t more be like this?