Hip, hip, hooray for Govia Thameslink Failways

This week started well; for the past two days my morning train has actually gone to where it was supposed to and the afternoon one has only been a few minutes delayed. Last week Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) only managed to complete the morning train once in four attempts (I worked from home on the Monday so it got a wildcard that day).

Last Tuesday morning I was thrown off at East Croydon when the rostered driver remembered he wasn't trained to stop at the next station (London Bridge) and the service had to be diverted, on Wednesday it was cancelled completely, and on Thursday the driver again wasn't trained to complete the route. On that occasion passengers were told to get on the next service only to be thrown off that too because the next driver wasn't trained to complete the roster either. According to station staff they genuinely don’t know if a driver will be able to complete the trip till it’s on route, and the drivers themselves don’t seem keen to announce their lack of capability till they have no other option. As London Bridge is the most popular station on this route (and my stop) the result is a mass detraining with hundreds desperately scrambling across platforms for the next dangerously overcrowded train.  

Since the botched implementation of the Rail2020 timetable last month GTR ‘services’ have declined from unreliably shite to shambolically unreliably shite. Long-standing failings having been exacerbated by changes it simply wasn't capable of implementing. Absolutely nobody was surprised by the failure, especially not GTR which appear to have ignored all evidence as well as its own track record.

The abysmal performance of GTR and its puppet master the Department of Transport over the past few years has been documented by journalist David Boyle; he’s debunked much of the false narrative seeking to lay the blame on belligerent trade unions and staff sickies. It’s clear the DfT hired GTR as a hatchet man to hollow out the services in the name of cost cutting. The arrangement designed specifically to give the DfT plausible deniability about the disaster this experiment created whilst also creating a moral hazard whereby GTR still get paid whilst running the operation into the ground.

GTR doesn't employ enough drivers to deliver all its scheduled services, it hasn’t since it took over the former franchises it operates (it has a management contract not a franchise). It doesn’t appear to have done much to recruit and train drivers to plug this structural understaffing; that would incur costs and as it gets paid regardless there is no incentive. Instead GTR relies on massive use of overtime to maintain 'normal' service, which means absolutely no resilience in the system. Sustainable operations run at 80% of capacity in normal times, the other 20% being contingency to handle shocks. Organisations that run at close to 100% all the time are not sustainable because no organisation has perfect operating conditions all the time.

Much has been made of Network Rail's delay in signing-off the new magnum opus timetable. There is some truth in this, but it's an excuse stretched too far. The new routes are materially the same as those consulted on two years ago, GTR should have begun training drivers on the changes earlier and adjusted for any small changes after sign-off. But GTR doesn't have enough drivers, so it doesn't want to take them out of service for training and the DfT didn’t want to delay the new timetable even after a clusterfuck became inevitable.

So now we have ‘short notice service alterations’ where services mysteriously vanish only minutes before their scheduled departure time, where drivers get rostered on to routes they’re not able to complete and where you simply cannot trust any information provided through official channels.   

Charles Horton, the CEO of GTR fell on his sword last week, even the DfT's favourite puppet realised the sheer level of shiteness had moved beyond parody. Transport Minister Chris 'Failing' Grayling hangs on by the skin of his teeth, narrowly surviving a vote of no confidence today, the grim conclusion of the disintegrating Conservative Party being that it doesn’t have anyone to replace him. But ‘Failing’ say it’s okay, he’s sure it’s not his fault and just as soon as he works out why the industry he has been in charge of for the last two years has collapsed he’s going to start doing something about it!

Kidney Research UK makes me sad

Last July I enjoyed Kidney Research UK’s London Bridges walk; a seven-mile hike up and down the Central London section of the Thames raising important funds for kidney disease. It was a fun, family friendly event I was looking forward to doing again, so I was pleased to get a reminder email given the communications last year were decidedly hit and miss. But, having read this year’s terms and conditions I’ve reluctantly decided not to bother. 

Last year it was £10 to register and from memory there was a suggested sponsorship target of £60. £10 seemed a bargain considering it included a t-shirt so I made an additional contribution, and I covered the suggested sponsorship with donations from family and friends as well as out of my own pocket. But the important thing was that I didn’t feel under pressure to hit a target, I simply donated money as I received it. 

This year things have changed. When I followed up the email I found registration has increased to £15, which I thought was reasonable. However, there was now a £100 minimum sponsorship target with some rather wretched boilerplate text to the effect that people who cannot commit to it aren’t welcome. Since the original email I’ve checked back and the wording has been tweaked a few times, for example ‘minimum sponsorship’ was rebranded ‘suggested sponsorship’ and the FAQ have been modified but the boilerplate still essentially tells people who cannot commit £100 sponsorship to jog on. 

I know it’s in a good cause, that’s why I’ve previously supported it, and I could also cover the minimum sponsorship from my own pocket without hardship, which is possibly why I am so torn over this (if I couldn’t there wouldn’t be any debate), but I’m an analyst by disposition as well as occupation and the reasoning for this rather wretched policy just doesn’t stack up and that leaves a bad smell I just cannot ignore. I can afford to entertain this, but there are probably people out there who will be excluded even though they could make a positive contribution if they weren’t.

The original boilerplate (since amended) appeared to be copied over from other fund-raising events without sufficient copy editing to make it specific; for example it discusses the need to cover the costs of major events organised by other organisations such as the London Marathon, where places are highly coveted and very expensive (a charity place for the London Marathon costs hundreds of pounds). But this event is organised by Kidney Research UK and whilst costs need to be covered by participants they’re not on the scale of a marathon which requires road closures, policing, and significant support infrastructure from public sector bodies. 

More recent boilerplate covers the more realistic costs incurred by this event such as stewards, tents, snacks etc. This is perfectly reasonable, but after some cursory research into equivalent events I conclude that costs are probably covered by the £15 registration fee, with sponsorship being the contribution to the charity’s actual mission. For comparison Diabetes UK are running an almost identical event in September with a £5 registration fee and no minimum sponsorship, it suggests a sponsorship target of £120 which I have no problem with, but crucially it stresses its walk as a family event and doesn’t get heavy about minimums. 

The relationship between the actual cost of the event and the registration fee also explains the incongruous decision to allow late entrants to sign-up on the day for £25. Unless such entrants are only allowed to join with a pre-registered participant it’s unlikely they’ll have set up a sponsorship programme beforehand. If I’m right, the marginal revenue of £25 from a late sign-up more than covers the marginal cost of accommodating them, especially as by that point the costs are mostly sunk. 

I don’t have all the numbers, but my conclusion is that by being heavy handed about minimum sponsorship Kidney Research UK is estimating that participation numbers are relatively inelastic when it comes to sweating fund raisers for contributions. After all is said and done most of them will have experience of kidney disease, whether personally or through friends and family, and will shrug off the unpleasantness implicit in such calculations. For me though it’s too much of a spoiler. I’m still going to make a donation to Kidney Research UK, as I think the work is too important not to, but it won’t be as much as had it not been so grubby.