Night Tube Part 2: A Hard Day’s Night

Night Tube
This is the Night Tube crossing the border,
From Zone One to suburban order,
Emails for luvvy, texts for more,
Facebook to all, including next door. 

Uphill from Camden, a steady climb, 
Lots got off there, and she's on time, 
Happy crew carousing, tones getting higher
Past Belsize and Hampstead, into Mid'shire. 

Downhill to Golders, snoozer arouses, 
To silent miles of semi-detached houses. 
 
JR 2016, with appreciation to WH Auden

Delayed introduction

The first part of this article brought us to Summer 2015, with heavy demand seen on the Night Buses and late evening Tubes, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights. There were plans, following the success of longer Underground operating hours during the Olympics, to open up the busiest Tube lines to 24 hour operation on those two nights. A report was submitted to the TfL Rail and Underground Panel at its meeting on 16 July 2015 about project progress to date, and final steps to implementation.

It was then planned to launch a service on all five intended lines simultaneously, on 12^th September 2015:

• Central: Ealing Broadway-Loughton/Hainault via Newbury Park
• Jubilee: throughout
• Northern: via Charing Cross (not via City, nor Mill Hill East)
• Piccadilly: Heathrow T5-Cockfosters (not Heathrow T4, nor Acton Town-Rayners Lane)
• Victoria: throughout

It is a moot point whether that start should have been defined as near the end of Friday 11th’s traffic day instead of first thing on Saturday 12^th. TfL was uncomfortable about US-style 9/11 connotations, so focused on the 12^th as the operative date.

The main report was endorsed. However, it wasn’t that simple to get the Night Tube operational.

There was a significant delay arising particularly from staff relations and conditions of service. This took more time to discuss and work through at the staff representatives’ level, as well as with national trade unions. The TfL report had stated that Night Tube operations would begin in September. So relationships (at whatever state they were then) diverged further after the report was compiled.

There had been a strike about the Night Tube proposals on 8^th July, so September 2015 was going to be ambitious, even though it had been suggested as an opening date back in September 2014 (and staff discussions had been underway since November 2013 when the London Underground Limited’s (LUL) ‘Fit for the Future’ plan had been launched). Was this staff pressure, LUL / TfL optimism, or some of both? We have to cast back several years to find the causes, which lie with the origins of the Night Tube.

The original intention to launch a Night Tube had been voiced by the Mayor London, then Boris Johnson, in his announcement of the ‘Tube Future Vision’ in November 2013. By then, work on the Night Tube had been underway for 1½ years, with high level plans ready by December 2012.

Wider staffing changes

The statement and style foresaw significant transformation. This was not going to be a softly, softly opening, but a change in historic practices. In the absence of other churn, the Night Tube might not have appeared confrontational – after all, more railway jobs would be created with the Night Tube. But in practice, the wider context was more stressful. The nature of the extra night jobs was also not wholly benign for existing staff, and this is discussed below.

The November 2013 announcement described the changes to how stations were to be staffed:

A new, simplified staffing model will reflect the fact that customers have different needs at each of the different types of station across the network. Many busy Tube stations will have to deal with queries from less familiar customers, including tourists, so enhanced visitor centres will be provided at those stations. All Tube stations will continue to be staffed by LU employees across the whole day while services are operating, providing face-to-face customer service and information across the whole network.

The changes to the operation of stations and improvements to customer service will be delivered while also reducing the overall cost of running stations, to provide better value for money for customers and tax payers. From 2015, LU proposes to operate stations in four different categories.

Before any changes are introduced full safety risk assessments will be carried out. All stations will continue to be appropriately staffed to ensure safe operation and evacuation and to maintain LU’s excellent safety record. The new station staffing proposals have now been shared with LU staff and with recognised Trade Unions for consultation. The proposals, when coupled with the introduction of the Night Tube, would mean a net reduction of around 750 posts.

[Note that the Night Tube increases the staff numbers required for overnight operations compared to a 1-1:30 am closure and a 4:30-5 am start]

Currently, LU employs a total of around 18,000 staff, which includes around 5,500 station staff. LU is committed to delivering the reduction in operational staff numbers without any compulsory redundancies. When implemented, the savings delivered by these proposals would equate to around £50m per annum, or around £270m over the term of the TfL Business Plan to 2020/21. These new fully staffed station operating arrangements will ensure we provide world class standards of customer service in a way that is unique amongst the world’s metro systems.

TfL’s November 2013 Night Tube announcement

Front line or welcoming line?

Apart from control rooms, which are a fixed feature, specific Night Tube changes to working practices were defined by LUL:

• Tube station staff would not be based in ticket offices, but in ticket halls, on gate lines, and on platforms, ready, and available to give the best personal and face-to-face service to customers.
• Staff equipped with the latest mobile technology, such as tablet computers, would be able to monitor and manage stations on the move.
• Four categories of stations were defined:
  • Gateway stations – the main visitor entry points to London, with a high proportion of people unfamiliar with the Tube network. These stations – Euston, Heathrow Terminals 123, King’s Cross St. Pancras, Liverpool Street, Paddington, and Victoria – were to all have enhanced and redeveloped Visitor Information Centres. These required 30 per cent more staff in ticket halls, and an increase in overall ticket selling capacity of 33 per cent.
  • Destination stations – busy stations in Central London that had high volumes of customers and included busy commuter and tourist destinations, such as Bank/Monument, Embankment, Leicester Square, and Oxford Circus. Requirement for 30 per cent more staff in the ticket halls.
  • Metro stations – serving predominantly inner London communities, with many regular users, such as Clapham South and Mile End. Dedicated customer service staff with the latest in mobile technology permanently located in ticket halls.
  • Local stations – smaller stations, mostly in Outer London or beyond that had lower customer numbers and served mainly regular users, such as Rickmansworth and East Putney. Staff to be located in ticket halls.

The background was that the trend of ticket sales away from ticket offices had surged over recent years, with Oyster and Pay-as-you-go. Fewer than 3% of all Tube journeys now involved a visit to a ticket office (though significant in volume, betwixt 20-40m transactions annually). Other forms of contactless ticketing were also planned, such as bank and credit cards.

At that time, it was still intended that all Tube stations would continue to be staffed, with staff more visible and more available than before in ticket halls and on gate lines, and with the same number of staff on platforms. Before any changes were introduced, full safety risk assessments would be carried out, and station staffing levels would be set to ensure safe operation and evacuation standards. The new staffing proposals were shared with LU staff and the trade unions for consultation.

Discussions with staff and unions were not going to be simple, and perhaps inevitably the jobs growth offered by the Night Tube were subsumed within a bigger range of sensitivities about changing the rôles of jobs on the Underground and risks to union membership numbers. Having staff visible on platforms and entry/exit zones has however fitted well with seeking to open up the Tube to 24 hour operation, as staff would be closer to assist.

Such was the plan in November 2013.

Back to Basics

If the ‘Tube Future Vision’ was the broad context for staff and unions’ concerns, which led to a number of disputes and strikes, what were the specific points of concern with the Night Tube?

Developing the original Night Tube proposition during 2012 had been serendipitous – and a positive process. It was a combination of highly detailed analysis of the night engineering practices which merited review and tightening up, plus the happy outcome that this analysis defined sufficient operational flexibility to host the baseline engineering volume during five nights a week.

The later operation of the Tube for the Olympic Games had been the starting point. LUL ran approximately one hour later every night of the Olympics and Paralympics. For the Opening Ceremonies, they ran two hours later. The post-Olympics headline was that while there were a few LUL requirements for lengthier line closures, eg for long term upgrades, two nights a week could be released for all-night passenger operations for the bulk of the operational year.

In contrast with Network Rail engineering practice which relies heavily on weekend possessions, the Underground had undertaken little general maintenance recently during Saturday nights, because of the higher unit engineering costs arising then. Track works were largely performed Monday to Friday nights, though the Jubilee, Northern, and Piccadilly Tube group already focused on Sunday to Thursday nights because of decisions taken by the previous PPP company. However, akin to NR, the longer engineering hours on a Saturday night (made possible by a later start-up on a Sunday morning) are popular with projects undertaking one-off pieces of work. So overnight solutions such as replacement bus services could not be ruled out entirely.

After many weekend closures on the Victoria line upgrade, there had already been a diktat that such closures were to be the last resort, not the first. So by the time Night Tube was publicly announced, the ballasted track and Tube track renewals teams had been working hard to develop methods of replacing plain line track during engineering hours. The longest engineering hours period was on Saturday nights, so the Night Tube caused the loss of more than two of the seven overnights. This had to be worked though. Some routine maintenance was also altered to take account of the increase in gross tonnage in track renewal material.

how 24 hour operation would be safe

A detailed review was undertaken about how existing engineering activities were inaugurated during late evening after last passenger trains, and then closed down safely during the early morning to re-open for first passenger trains. A team analysed all recent track access bookings. This led to the conclusion that there was scope to revise the access times, with engineering staff ready to begin work sooner by not waiting for the last trains to depart before entering station premises. This was enabled by using better communications and modern IT-based booking on and off practices, which provided tighter completion times whilst continuing to ensure a safe working environment.

Gaining 30 to 60 minutes a night of engineering time allowed Friday night to open up as well as Saturday night to potential passenger operations, as those were the nights with greater than average passenger demand after 10pm. The Docklands Light Railway was excluded from the review because of the large-scale station works being undertaken at Bank for some years. Also, Tower Gateway station lacked a direct Tube interchange within Central London for passengers to/from the West End and other busy venues. Nor had a Night DLR been included in the new Concession contract, which was a further factor.

It wasn’t just track work which was affected, some time was lost for when signalling works were required – a key issue was the nightly rebooting of signalling control systems. Accordingly, the Night Tube wasn’t introduced on lines which hadn’t been resignalled. However the Piccadilly Line was an exception, as at the time there were no immediate plans to resignal the line even though passenger demand was high.

For rolling stock, the key safety challenge was the requirement for the nightly maintenance test by staff, including a physical tripcock test (or ATP equivalent). This test was a major drain on resources, and much effort was put into justifying a reduced frequency – at least 48 hourly. LU managers were convinced that this would be safe, well before the Night Tube proposals, and it would also have led to an overall improvement in condition of the fleet as staff could be redeployed onto other maintenance work. However, largely because of union reluctance, no train that entered service on Friday morning was scheduled to operate for more than 24 hours with Night Tube continuous running. Also, other maintenance needed to be rejigged slightly as it was based on mileage intervals, and the Night Tube would cause overall mileage to rise.

A business case emerges

The study then cascaded to the marginal costs and revenues, and the transport benefits and wider London benefits of achieving a later finish or an all night Underground service. Some way along this analysis, even with assumptions about the extent of daily ‘fare-capping’ which would arise with Oyster and Pay-as-you-go, a positive core business case emerged, meaning that opening up the Tube would be affordable and beneficial.

LUL initially looked at a range of options for changes to staff numbers, including the possibility of part-time staffed jobs. However its main thoughts were for extensions to existing rosters, not least as it had doubts about trade unions’ willingness to see part-time staffing established on the Underground. A few more train managers would be required on a full time shift basis, plus additional station staff, but the core specification pointed to recruitment of around 50 additional full-time train operators. The basic plan was established by December 2012, and, with further assessment, this was incorporated in the ‘Tube Future Vision’ statement of November 2013. Furthermore, the Night Tube operational specification was partly dependent on updating station operations.

‘easyTube’

The cost parallel is shown by low-cost jet operators, such as easyJet and Ryanair. As an intensive service operator for mostly short haul distances, there are large upfront plane leasing costs, largely fixed maintenance costs, and air terminal and navigation charges. For a railway, the comparables are train leasing/depreciation costs, plus station and track charges.

How to make money or add value and bring more benefits? Simply, by staying open longer with additional marginal staffing and running costs, even if the pilots (or train operators) have relatively high unit costs. It is best value to run the high cost assets for more of the 168 hours available each week, after subtracting required maintenance downtime.

Roster scheduling

The core topic that then arose was crew rosters, once the impact of those was perceived, particularly at the ‘front end’. Rosters are the schedules that drive staffing arrangements, give certainty about foreseeable working shifts for future weeks and months, and certainty for line controllers. The latter are able to vary train services in case of delay or disruption, with all train operators and indeed all operating staff assigned via the rosters to specific times of availability.

In normal circumstances, rosters define the working patterns and pre-determine the basic clock-on and clock-off times for working weeks, which can include split-shift, some late evening, or explicit night working hours. A complete ‘tour’ for train operators runs for multiple weeks, well beyond a single Period of four weeks. (There are 13 accounting Periods in the railway year, with major changes to railway operations, eg franchise change-overs, are generally timed to occur at the divide between two Periods).

When overlaid by the required rest hours between duties, adding allowance for rest-day working and holiday relief schedules, and cascading from am to pm etc, a nominally simple rostering proposition is made more complex. For example, the mandatory limits of working hours and agreed periods between shifts have to be checked on the staffing schedule, by following through the tour of duty for each individual member of staff.

In simplified terms, the overall scheduling sequence had meant about one night shift a year for typical front-of-train duty – if the roster were followed. This wasn’t attractive to everyone, for example among older staff with families, or those preferring other non-night-work lifestyles. Basically, some staff prefer evenings/nights/weekends, others don’t.

The system does permit flexibility for staff to ‘job swap’ within their depot team and be happiest at their finally-agreed duties, within the rules on working hours, and this remains an important element for staff satisfaction. In practice, many train operators had adopted the practice of swapping a single night duty with a willing colleague. But with new full time staffing patterns for Night Tube, some might then unavoidably be required to work several night shifts a year.

A Long Day’s Journey into Night?

LUL estimated that overnight staffing on two nights a week would require existing train operators to be on duty about three nights shifts per year, compared to the typical single yearly shift. So the underlying cause for concern with the Night Tube proposals was the impact on working periods and the risks of not being able to ‘job swap’ (not the pay rates). This was a significant part of the delay to introduction of the Night Tube, as implied by an August 2015 TfL communiqué issued once this point was recognised (see below).

We have seen that by July 2015 there was a standstill, preceded by a strike to emphasise the fact. LUL did what was expected of it, by coming up with an improved offer. Pay rates were addressed, but equally importantly, the conditions of service were reviewed. Some clarity about a possible basis for staff agreement on Night Tube operations then emerged as a consequence of the July 2015 events. In August 2015, there was further industrial action (see the accompanying press releases). LUL tabled a revised offer which also contrasted its position with the RMT’s.

The RMT bargaining position was then:

• A basic 32 hour, 4 day week and no Night Tube duties – those to be a separate payment.
• Bonus payments originally planned as a short transitional period, to be continued beyond then.
• Payments for Night Tube to be system-wide.
• Re-employment of staff into back-office jobs.

LUL observed that:

• LU staff were already employed on 24-hour contracts.
• LU was now offering the choice to drivers whether or not to work Night Tube shifts – so no bonus payment was needed continuously, nor for non-Night Tube lines.
• Non-Night Tube lines did not merit payments for Night Tube operations.
• Re-hiring staff was not relevant, they were no longer needed because of ticket modernisation.

The LUL revised pay offer and guarantees (which addressed other topics in addition to the Night Tube) were:

• 3-year offer (from April 2015) – guaranteed pay rise for each year,
• Average increase on basic salary of 2% for 2015, made up of 1% annual pay increase (equivalent to RPI) plus £500 consolidated flat rate increase recognising the introduction of the Night Tube,
• RPI or 1% (whichever greater) pay increase for 2016 and 2017,
• £500 non-consolidated launch payment to all staff on Night Tube lines or at stations serving these lines,
• Guaranteed equivalent launch payment for future Night Tube linesk
• £500 non-consolidated payment at the successful launch of the new Fit for the Future – Stations model for station staff,
• Everybody remained entitled to two days off in seven, and annual leave entitlements were unchanged – 43 days for drivers and 52 days for station staff.

More detail was set out for individual groups of staff.

The solution: part-time train operators

The trade unions had been party to discussions on the Night Tube as well as the ‘Tube Future Vision’ – primarily ASLEF (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen), RMT (Rail, Maritime & Transport Union), TSSA (Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association), and Unite. RMT also covered the trackwork elements. They had been quick to respond to staff disquiet about overnight rostering implications.

Further discussions, initially through the government’s Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), between LUL, the unions, and staff councils led LUL to review the option of part-time train operators. Agreement with the unions about the Night Tube was established before Christmas 2015, though the broader ‘Tube Future Vision’ topics remained as a main debating point – so the threat of several proposed overtime bans and strikes, and the related press releases, didn’t cease until nearer Spring 2016 when an overall pay and conditions deal was signed off.

Recruitment was put in hand during three weeks over the Christmas/New Year 2015/16 period, for over 200 part-time train operators. The initial complement of 195 additional staff was raised to 212, to provide an extra 3-5 people per line for a greater margin for overnight availability of train operators. Over 6,500 people applied for these posts, and the successful applicants were appointed by mid-January 2016, with training beginning then. The estimated additional cost for this part-time staff volume was £5½m a year – a marginal cost for Tube operations. It also highlighted the merits of greater use of costly assets, subject to meeting safety and security norms.

Industrial relations dispute

We can now put in context the industrial relations dispute which became visible from July 2015. Rostering was and is a central factor for staff. The main phraseology adopted by the unions from mid-2015 centred on the ‘work/life balance’. That Londoners and its visitors were themselves changing their own work/life balance at a steady pace to enjoy London at more of a 24/7 timeframe, was not material to the point raised by staff and their representatives.

Unless you have undertaken shift work, with very early starts and very late finishes, and some overnighters, you cannot be aware of the potential impacts on basic things such as sleeping patterns, family hours together, and leisure times. That Night Buses were fully crewed and not presenting fundamental problems had been encouraging to TfL. Expansion of this aspect of Tube operations would require more, not fewer staff. for this function. Or to put it another way, it would mitigate some of the reduction in other railway jobs, so was a net ‘positive’.

But the sensitivity about changed rosters for some established staff hadn’t fully registered within LUL and TfL. According to the standard rosters, what was intended wasn’t a large change within a year’s turnover of working periods. LUL to start with was also concerned, for other foreseen staff relations reasons, about a new part-time staff cadre. However, in reality, expansion of railway operations in the small hours could affect the lifestyle of many operating staff, and particularly those in the cab if the proposal was for extension of full-time shifts. It was less of an issue that the bulk of line engineering would have to be managed better in five nights.

Political visibility

In parallel, as often emerges, politics was a lion sitting on the tracks. We had an individualistic Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, seen to be leading the case for modernised Underground operations, not exclusively about the Night Tube. However it was the Night Tube which was the publicly visible litmus test. Somewhat similarly to the consequences of the self-inflicted political deadline for opening the Jubilee Line Extension, this led to pressure on Johnson to agree to more Trade Union negotiation targets than might be viable, if he wanted all-night services to begin ahead of the Mayoral election in May 2016.

The strident tone adopted even by TSSA, not normally perceived as one of the more militant unions – but which had a lot at risk with their booking office staff membership – demonstrates that there were important topics at stake, even disregarding the political element.

Stances in this context were not exclusively about terms and conditions of employment, though it remained the underlying feature. It would be laborious to follow each specific line of argument, and not relevant to the eventual fact that it was under Boris Johnson that staffing agreements were finally reached during March 2016 between LUL and the unions. However, the publicity bonus of the opening dates ended up in the in-tray of London’s new Mayor, Labour’s Sadiq Khan.

The 2016 mayoral election was the deus ex machina which relaxed the negotiation ‘safety valves’ lacked by the Jubilee Line Extension. The timing of Tube operations for a Millennium cannot be influenced much by an election, but in the case of the Night Tube there was no absolute delivery date – discussions could take as long as they needed to enable all sides to achieve a fair deal.

It is simplest to list the press releases issued by each main negotiating party, in sequence from November 2013 onwards. You will observe the lines of argument adopted, the strikes which were mandated, and the repeated call for LUL and TfL to realise the undesired changes to conventional (shift-based but not overnight) daily working lives. To avoid too much clutter, the press release headlines are all listed in the linked annex, with links to the source websites. ASLEF has the last word in the press release list, with its release one day before the Night Tube began and which sums up what the disputes were about.

Night Tube finally opens

The opening and subsequent story will be covered in Part 3. The Central and Victoria lines starting on the night of Friday 19 August 2016. The Jubilee line Night services started on 7 October 2016, followed by the Northern line on 18 November 2016, thence the Piccadilly line on 16 December 2016. The Piccadilly was last in the sequence as it had the most topics raised by staff representatives. In summary, the opening of the Night Tube lines was phased to allow for training of drivers and station staff, and for familiarisation with particular Night Tube operational arrangements. This also provided the ability to vary implementation detail if early phases revealed matters which required adjustment not foreseen in trial planning, modelling, and operations.