As anyone looking to properly understand London’s transport needs and network knows, context, background and best-practice are important. As readers might imagine, behind the scenes here at LR Towers we thus spend a lot of time sharing links and reading around the subjects we cover here.
We also occasionally share links containing good information about transport topics that we know we just don’t have time to cover. We also all, as authors, occasionally write elsewhere on this or tangentially related subjects.
Part of this week’s list is a special topic – air pollution. Mostly unseen, it’s effects can be felt for decades.
If you’ve got something you feel we should read or include in a future list, don’t forget to email us at [email protected].
- London Vehicle Pollution charge coming – Guardian
- Marylebone Road the world’s most studied road for air pollution – Guardian
- London ULEZ planned for 2020 – Air Quality News
- London exceed it’s annual EU pollution limit in just one week – CityLab
- Tube Commuters Breathe More Pollution Than Drivers – CityLab
- Behavioural nudges in transport – CityLab
Plus items from contributors:
- DfT’s Optimism Bias Study – DfT
- Level crossing closures to enable the STAR 3 tracking – DfT
- TfL tracks Tube journeys by mobile phones – Gizmodo
- LA bus ridership declines – LA Times
The level crossing closures link seems to be broken?
[Fixed. Cheers. LBM]
Marylebone road link should be https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/15/marylebone-road-london-air-pollution-crisis-sadiq-khan
Is Khan going ahead with Johnson’s ULEZ plan unmodified?
No one cares about these stupid reading lists. I am finding I rarely check this website any more, as there is little original content. It’s a pity.
@Anonymous – I feel I have to spring to the organisers defence. The concept of the reading list is sound and it certainly highlighted topics I might otherwise have missed. I also think that by casting the net wide and including non London topics is a good feature. Generally the articles and ensuing comments are interesting. The fact that London Reconnections has a significant number of contributors and commentators is one of its strengths.
The one thing I would suggest needs some tweaking is the home page as the column highlighting the most recent comments is too far down and is only apparent through scrolling but that is a minor irritation.
I do have one question though which concerns the issue date for the next edition of the magazine as it seems a while since the last one was published.
@Anonymous
Don’t read them then. It’s not compulsory, and there isn’t an exam at the end.
I think the reading lists are a great way to keeps things cooking, between the original content posts. Keep em coming LBM.
Just to add (although it’s not related to this weeks theme of air pollution), Radio 4’s The Briefing Room had some panellists discuss the potential renationalisation of railways, which although was quite generalist had a couple of interesting points. But I’m sure LR towers had already considered it 🙂
@george – agree entirely; the lists often provoke interesting discussions without the LR editors having to produce a fully-researched article.
The question of nationalisation of Britain’s railways recurs sometimes. They are of course nationalised already – Network Rail is, since the other year, are so are LUL and DLR (under local authority control) and indeed TfL counts as a local authority organisation in its own right so can undertake prudential borrowing.
Whether as a franchise or concession, the main line passenger operations are well over 95% of mileage and volume within DfT, devolved governments and Mayoral-controlled contracts. Operating surpluses from some contracts are recycled to loss-making contracts and to help offset some of Network Rail’s deficits.
Privatised elements? Freight subject to permission to incur only marginal track charges – most freight operations would expire if full long run track costs were levied. Open access operators. Eurostar. And private hire trains such as chartered services (also relying on marginal track charges). The ORR is now looking to add a ‘PSO’ elements to marginal charges, to try to bring in a few more revenues.
Looking forward, HS2 is already acknowledged to be indivisible from West Coast operations with the recent new WCML franchise announcement, and with large uncertainties about its cost/revenue balance.
The conclusion – the nationalisation issue doesn’t really exist nowadays – the key is how actual train operations are organised for the net benefit of UK plc and area benefits and regeneration, and how railway finances are structured to afford the infrastructure.
On the latter point, readers might want to see what Harold Wilson said in March 1945 on the finances of nationalising the railways, in his large scale report which became the blueprint for Labour’s nationalisation – because pay only what the market is worth now, was his methodology. See link here: http://www.jrc.org.uk/PDFs/The-Finance-of-Railway-Nationalisation-March-1945-report-by-Harold-Wilson.pdf
And Eurostar is largely an SNCF operation, therefore French Government shareholding through various mechanisms …
@Anonymous
To quote one of my old haunts (BBC Backstage, may it rest in peace):
“Finally, remember that the noise is the signal. You can’t post too much. Deploy filters.”
Anonymous at 18Feb / 1736. If you couldn’t find anything useful to say, perhaps better to say nothing at all.
Meanwhile, I’ll add another vote to the tally of those of us who find the reading list a useful additional resource.
The reading list is interesting but maybe overly frequent? Back-to-back reading list posts suggest a risk of drowning out the rest of the site.
(Also I would suggest leading with the actual links, or finding a way to put them “above the fold”. At the moment the top two post “previews” on the homepage are identical, which doesn’t seem like the best use of space)
I think the public see nationalisation as having a single point of access with uniform procedures and pricing policy, like TfL, and don’t care that under the surface its a mix of private companies providing interlocking services. That is still popular with the consumer
@John B – I suspect that there is also the question of a clear line of accountability. Although the present structure is effectively controlled by the state, it’s very difficult to pin down the role of any specific actors (as the discussion on this site about guards demonstrates). No doubt, that is one of the points of keeping the present system in place- if so, one can only sympathise with those who want clarity for their tax-funded activities.
One might add that, to pick up JR’s analysis, although many of the actors are in fact state enterprises under another name, the present structure is driven by the conventions of public accounting and risk analysis, which – as here – can be highly artificial. Meaningless indeed.
[Just for amusement, and to pick up JR’s remarks again, in the ’80s, the Treasury was quite prepared to argue that ownership by an EU nationalised industry was tantamount to ownership by the British state. The question arose in relation to the abortive Port Ramsgate cross-channel ferry project, where the promoter was relying on a combination of the Belgian state shipping company and the French nationally-owned Armament Navale for finance]. Consistent, lui?
JR: thanks for the access to the Harold Wilson paper, which makes fascinating reading.
I’m interested that JR doesn’t think renationalisation is an issue any more.
I thought the main point was the cost of the bureaucracy sorting out the issues between the various businesses that make up ‘BR’, which wouldn’t be necessary under common ownership. Do we have any reliable estimates of what these costs are, including the costs of letting franchise contracts and tendering for them? If they are trivial (say <%2 of turnover) then it would seem he is correct.
I suspect that among those pressing for renationalisation, there is a wide range of aspirations all hiding under one (perhaps rather misleading) word. But I agree with JR’s contention that, in certain senses of the word, though perhaps not all, it is here already.
@(ex) Horsham commuter
We actually hadn’t noticed that, thanks for pointing it out. It’s at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08dmkl6.
@Roger B – the business and managerial arguments for renationalisation are
– allocation of (especially, shared) risk to the actors best able to manage it (which removes conflicting objectives, or, better, encourages the subject of the objectives to develop a methodology for trading them off, in the manner of LT/TfL)
– integrated approach to planning and investment
-removal of certain external transaction costs (see below)
-removal of certain cash transfers out of the sector (eg profits)
– removal of certain costs particular to the private sector
– recapitalisation of the industry with the consequent costs of writing back capex which had been written off previously in the public accounts (Note for Alan Robinson – not, of course, the same thing as writing off what was in the “companies act” accounts].
You ask what the total cumulative effect of all these factors might be. Although I am not aware of any recent study – a study which would probably be regarded as a thought crime by DfT- I do know what the impact was in 1996. This showed that the turnover of the industry,which had been approaching the 4 bn mark just before privatisation was around £7bn after the change. I know this because as BR’s company secretary, I had to fill in successive years’ tax returns for all the subsidiaries.
{I believe that I have remarked before that the sector’s economic output appeared to double overnight just because of the change and that when I pointed this out to HMRC, they replied that they would have picked this up and netted off the transfers in subsequent years. I know for a fact they didn’t – I filled in the following year’s returns… and the ones after that. The questions they askedtoldme that they never bothered to inquire into the wooden dollar structure. By way of further amusement, the apparent growth in the economy – much trumpeted by the government in what turned out to be an election year – was exactly the same as the bookkeeping increase in the rail sector].
I will refrain from setting out examples of each of the factors because they would bore people (especially that Anonymous who can’t stand this thread..)
Sorry to belabour the point but it is extremely odd to complain about something to read, when you don’t have to read it. The only explanation is that it’s a pathetic attempt to troll.
@Bryn Davies-and given that the post can hardly reflect on the poster’s employment security, to hide behind anonymity is just cowardice.
@ Graham H – my sense of the “railways nationalisation” debate is that it is on two levels. For those who have “a clue” there is the view you set out that various costs or “transfers” would be eliminated. What they don’t set against this is what “guiding mind” would be needed to bring about some form of centralised control and what this would cost. The other missing aspect is how you ensure that the “guiding mind” is efficient and not full of people still fighting the railway battles of the last 70 years.
The other level seems to be a mythical belief that fares will fall and suddenly be affordable for everyone and that literally thouands of new carriages will appear in under two years to fix all the overcrowding woes that people endure. I think there is also something along the lines of what was said earlier about a more coherent “public face” to the railways and a perceived greater sense of accountability and ability to “deal with complaints”.
I’ve no great axe to grind either way. I can see that there are plenty of informed people who use the railways far more than I do who are perfectly content with the existing structure and seem to like the smaller TOC focus to customer service. They are also fond of reminding people about BR by using snaps of rattly DMUs and decrepit stations from the 1980s. There is also some level of efficient operation and innovation in some TOCs although it’s not consistent across the entire network. Many of us can remember that 1980s BR but we also remember an organisation that knew how to run a railway professionally on not a lot of money and which, in some ways, performed better than today.
I don’t think there is a magic wand to nationalise the rail network because no one can accurately describe how you get from today to the “future” without huge disruption and risks to day to day performance and safety. I also don’t see where the money could come from for the transition costs. However I am also not at all convinced that the current structure is sustainable financially nor in terms of avoiding unacceptable interference from DfT ministers. I think a crunch point is on its way that will severely test the industry in ways which are not well understood. I’m not saying this will be a safety thing or accident – more something that exposes serious fault lines in the industry structure that will cause people to pause and reconsider what is in place.
IMHO the use of ‘Anoymous’ as a posting name should be removed. Along with any variants.
The fact that even when typing this post ‘Anonymous’ is the default posting names should also be ended. There is no way to know if such post are from one single person or 27.
Perhaps the mods should look at having a registration system for posters that many other sites do to prevent such abuse.
That said, and as others have said – don’t like the lists then don’t read them. Some weeks I don’t even click on them, others I do and there is nothing that immediately takes my fancy and then in others there are several
As the reading lists are very different to the articles, you could set up separate RSS feeds for them. John Bull (I think) removed the industry news items from the articles feed when I remarked that the only the latter were of interest to me.
@WW – I wouldn’t dissent from your points about the guiding mind, although we did do some internal work in the dying days of BR as to what the minimum staffing needs for a fully-contracted out but BR-controlled railway might look like. In the light of experience with OfQ, the answer was probably no more than a couple of hundred.
Would it cost a lot to make the transition? Probably not as much as many think (although I wouldn’t underestimate the capacity of the various parties who would need to be involved, to muck it up). We have nearly all the bits of the jigsaw needed, it’s just like the Morecambe and Wise joke about “I played all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”. The thing is that none of the existing players actually knows how to behave like a directing mind, and those that want to do so are afraid of being seen to do so (the accountability point again).
The key is to reintegrate train planning and project development with the commercial side of the sector so tat they face a common customer (and that customer is the punter)
There ought to be some quick hits in money terms in any transition -no more money leaving the industry in terms of profits to holding companies, no salaries for “adversarial” performance and contract management staff, and so on. I don’t see the process as expensive, but it might be long drawn out – as was OfQ.
I think the key issue with respect to *nationalisation* is accountability. It would not have been difficult for the DfT, particularly during the Blair/Brown years, to move from net cost franchising to gross cost concessions – a bit like the TfL model. This would have made clear the guiding hand from Great Minster House and given a better opportunity for coordination and consistency. Cynically, though, I know of many civil servants who would fight quite hard to move away from the current regime which gives them power without responsibility. Some ministers, too, are happy with that, particularly in a political climate which frowns upon strategic planning by the state but which loves to be able to dabble when the mood suits.
Chris C / John B
The reading lists from Fridays are brilliant (IMHO) … but … the list of “Industry News & Releases” should PLEASE have a date/time-stamp against the items, & be updated more frequently than once a fortnight?
I’m not sure that the author of “London’s Subway Commuters Breathe More Pollution Than Drivers” understands much about what’s involved in fitting air conditioning to tube trains…
Not sure why anybody is complaining about Anonymous’ post. He/she is allowed an opinion and allowed to voice it. Perhaps they are long time readers and have just become disappointed with the reduction in original content, and would like to let the contributors know.
@timbeau, Bryn Davies and others – if you don’t have anything to contribute other than complain about others posts then please don’t. I know that is what this post may seem like, but I feel I have to promote freedom to express opinion rather than it be quashed by others.
@henry – it’s not so much that Anonymous isn’t entitled to his opinion, of course he is, but the terms in which he expresses it are both rude and suggestive of stupidity and blame to be attached to the site’s managers and contributors, when he could have made the point more neutrally,simply saying something like “I regret to say that I do not find this thread as rewarding asI had hoped”. . His opinion – and this is a point to be made about trolls everywhere- is not supported by reference to facts and examples. Without that, his opinion is just that – and since he cannot be bothered to identify himself, his opinions are in fact worthless – a mere efletus. Why should anyone be interested?
May I turn the immediate debate to a more constructive avenue, whilst noting in passing that Graham H might be guilty of assuming that Anon is a He…!
The latest post is the first reading list I’ve felt it useful to comment on, directly as a consequence of a previous comment, and that’s led to an interesting discussion about the multiple meaning(s) of nationalisation.
However I do think that having a Reading List weekly, posted in what had largely been a major article sequence, can appear disruptive and a diversion from the extensive narratives and those debates from contributors.
I therefore have some sympathy with lmm’s view set out above that they risk drowning out the mainstream stories – but over then to the LR team for thoughts about the lists might be presented more comfortably – if they think that is important.
I’d like to add some support to Anonymous’ right to express their views as well.
Whilst I still thoroughly enjoy LR’s output, the quantity of original material has reduced noticeably in recent months. On that basis I don’t think its unreasonable to critique these weekly reading lists. Whilst often interesting, they don’t make for essential reading and if one already follows plenty of urbanism/transportation accounts on Twitter, they’re sometimes old news (not that LR can do much about that).
All of this would be entirely forgivable if LR was being run ‘charitably’, but the move towards more formal means of publication (notably the magazine) has meant that many of us here are of course paying customers. On that basis, I think its quite reasonable for commenters here to have a degree of expectation. Given LR’s general competence and rightfully earned reputation it would be unfair to suggest the team are walking before they can run – perhaps a better analogy is to suggest that they’re trying to run the London Marathon before ever managing to finish their first Parkrun.
Magazine subscribers paid their £50 18 months ago on the promise of magazines every other month, and I note that’s still what’s advertised if one tries to subscribe now. So far only 4 magazines have materialised, and its been over 6 months since the last. Subsequent to the launch of the magazine we’ve also seen the emergence of the On Our Line podcast, on which the consensus from previous comments seems to be pretty mixed (they’re certainly not my cup of tea). This would be fine if On Our Line was an extra to new written content, but my perception from afar is that they might have become a bit of a distraction.
At the end of the day LR is a project and above all a hobby for those involved, but it has only got to where it has by capturing the imagination of its audience and providing something fascinating and different. I’ve never seen critical comments on any LR article until recently, so perhaps it might be worth the team taking stock and refocusing on what people want.
I am starting to enjoy these reading lists. What gets confusing is the intertwined nature of comments on the various articles. Hence we get nationalisation, pollution and rants about the usefulness of the reading lists themselves all mixed up together…..rather like prawn cocktail, roast beef/yorkshire pudding and plum duff all served on the same plate….. if you don’t mind a rather nausious analogy.
@LVL/130 -I would agree with these problems -maybe, the underlying issue is “overstretch”: too many media and streams to be supported fully. The amount of work in developing even a single article series (or even the Christmas Quiz) is enormous – I can see that as a mere reviewer, let alone a fully-fledged “voluntary” author.