Would there be support for a railway staffing increase?

[glbotu]

Hi

This is a question for those in the industry (at all echelons/grades/positions if they lurk here).

Would there be support for increasing the number of railway staff? My understanding, based on discussions on this forum and elsewhere, is that the railway relies on its staff working overtime in order to actually operate the railway. I also understand that this is somewhat ingrained into the workplace culture and that staff believe they have some form of duty to do this.

If, however, a TOC decided that they would hire enough staff to run the railway with no (or limited) overtime, would this be widely supported, given the cultural change required?

This is a hypothetical and I'm just interested in people's views on this.

 

[northwichcat]

New franchises will be required to run more services. More services has to mean more drivers except on Metro services like London Underground where automated trains could be used.

The numbers of ticket office staff doesn't seem to be increasing. TOCs seem to see TVMs as the solution to long queues and increases in passenger numbers not more ticket office staff.

I think increasingly Sunday services will have to be operated by staff who are contracted to work on Sundays opposed to staff who volunteer to work on Sundays.

 

[ComUtoR]

On the surface an increase in staff seems logical and the obvious response to that is the increase in costs. If we skip that unsolvable argument for a minute we need to look at rosters, depot distribution, link working, shift working, part time, and the dreaded casualization.

Huge culture change is needed rather than a simple increase in staff.

 

[Greenback]

There has been a big culture change since I worked on the railway. Basic pay is much higher now for booking office staff, and a lot of the old allowances and additional payments have been swept away.

We always had some agency staff in Reading, and we had plenty of part time staff in the ticket office covering a variety of shift patterns. Some people do want part time work, though the hard part is finding the right balance between full timers and part timers.

It isn't really a simple question as ComUtoR says. If many staff were on zero hour contracts, the numbers on the books would be higher, but the costs could be lower overall. However, that is not a route that I would be at all happy to set off on, I'm just using it as an illustration.

 

[HH]

On the surface an increase in staff seems logical and the obvious response to that is the increase in costs. If we skip that unsolvable argument for a minute we need to look at rosters, depot distribution, link working, shift working, part time, and the dreaded casualization.

Huge culture change is needed rather than a simple increase in staff.

This is true. Basically the railway was weaned on overtime (or more properly rest day working). Originally, this was because of the low rates of pay for all grades of staff - they needed the extra work to make ends meet. Nowadays most grades of staff are split between those who want the extra money and those who'd rather have the time off. Keeping both sets of staff happy can be a tricky balancing act. The usual method seems to be to have just under the right amount of staff so that there will be rest days available for those who want them. Of course this can have problems.

It also has to be said that where management is poor, staff will play the system to get 'overtime' where it's not needed, e.g. I've seen engineering depots where staff consistently came in on rest days when there was already a full team available for work that shift.

 

[Greenback]

I definitely needed to work Sundays and Rest Days during my time. I could just about scrape a living by being careful on basic pay, but it wasn't much fun.

 

[notadriver]

On many tram networks staff seem to be multi-skilled and can switch between doing revenue, driving or control as required.

The bus industry maximizes staff use to lower its costs. This means no extra payments for working days off, split shifts for drivers (12-13 hour days with a break in the middle) and a 5 day week. That together with a lower hourly rate means they can afford to have staff on hand without needing to pay overtime.

 

[HH]

On many tram networks staff seem to be multi-skilled and can switch between doing revenue, driving or control as required.

The bus industry maximizes staff use to lower its costs. This means no extra payments for working days off, split shifts for drivers (12-13 hour days with a break in the middle) and a 5 day week. That together with a lower hourly rate means they can afford to have staff on hand without needing to pay overtime.

Multi-skilling is already taking place for station staff (e.g. most staff at LOROL do multiple duties), but it wouldn't work for drivers - the training takes 12-18 months for a start, and the additional cost would be huge. Staff are generally on 5 days weeks (drivers are the exception).

How many bus drivers work split shifts? It's not common from what I've seen, at least for the larger operators.

 

[ComUtoR]

A bit more insight.

Rosters
The way that the roster is built allows that every service is booked, planned and has a Driver/Guard. There is a small amount of flexibility with Spare and cover turns. Those cover the small changes that occur. I know every train I will driver right up till December. I know all my days off and time I book on. (SP turns excluded)

The bad side is that it is fixed in stone and whilst I am planned well in advance life takes over. Sickness, births, deaths, life events etc. do not get planed and any single event that occurs in my life has an impact on the roster. From a company side there is training, assessments, promotion, retirement, annual leave, transfers etc and that also affects the roster. You are taken off your booked turn for buisness needs and ergo overtime gets used to cover your booked day.

From a service perspective it is again kinda broken. Everything is planned and expected to work 100% for 100% of the time but the railway breaks every damn day. Trains run late, crew get displaced, incidents happen, engineering works and the plethora of track and signal issues will break that wonderfully planned day. There is no flexibility because 100% of people are already working. That roster with all those staff sitting at home on their days off suddenly cannot bring in people to cope with the day to day issues.

Should we staff at 110% ? That's a big ask for a TOC to swallow that cost and ultimately its passed to the passenger.

Culturally I think that the excess staff sitting about each day just aren't used productively. I come in, sit in the depot and watch telly. I do not get given a roads refresher, I cannot use the sim, there are no managers to give me a quick assessment and safety briefs etc aren't possible. All because of the way in which the buisness is being run. The buisness culture is ingrained very deep. We need to look at better planning to allow a greater degree of flexibility and instead of seeing staff being unproductive on SP turns etc there needs to be a better use of resources so that employee needs are met in the down times rather than taking staff off booked diagrams and having to use those Rest Day workers or SP turns.

That is just the surface too. With shifts being just as inflexible it means that you cannot be pulled off a late to then be asked to work and early or come n for assessments, briefings etc. On the flip side you also need to have 12hr off before you return safety critical. We work 24/7 but management does not. Neither does the training school. The buisness needs for employees are not met 24/7 so they end up being pulled off an early turn which needs to be covered by overtime.

phew, glad that's over and still not even half the story.

tl;dr "its complicated"

 

[Greenback]

Multi-skilling is already taking place for station staff (e.g. most staff at LOROL do multiple duties), but it wouldn't work for drivers - the training takes 12-18 months for a start, and the additional cost would be huge. Staff are generally on 5 days weeks (drivers are the exception).

How many bus drivers work split shifts? It's not common from what I've seen, at least for the larger operators.

I've got two friends who work on the buses, and neither works split shifts. One has 41 years in the job, and has never worked a split shift in his entire career.

A relative has also worked as a bus driver (he's now on HGV's) and didn't work split shifts either. He said that the hours were much better than the lorries, but the pay not so good.

Not representative, obviously, but I don't think it's as common as might be thought. I think it's more likely in smaller companies who run a few passenger routes and rely mostly on school and contract or private hire work. There are a few like that around here!

Anyway, as with zero hour contracts, that's not a path we should be going down, in my view.

 

[tony6499]

A bit more insight.

Rosters
The way that the roster is built allows that every service is booked, planned and has a Driver/Guard. There is a small amount of flexibility with Spare and cover turns. Those cover the small changes that occur. I know every train I will driver right up till December. I know all my days off and time I book on. (SP turns excluded)

The bad side is that it is fixed in stone and whilst I am planned well in advance life takes over. Sickness, births, deaths, life events etc. do not get planed and any single event that occurs in my life has an impact on the roster. From a company side there is training, assessments, promotion, retirement, annual leave, transfers etc and that also affects the roster. You are taken off your booked turn for buisness needs and ergo overtime gets used to cover your booked day.

From a service perspective it is again kinda broken. Everything is planned and expected to work 100% for 100% of the time but the railway breaks every damn day. Trains run late, crew get displaced, incidents happen, engineering works and the plethora of track and signal issues will break that wonderfully planned day. There is no flexibility because 100% of people are already working. That roster with all those staff sitting at home on their days off suddenly cannot bring in people to cope with the day to day issues.

Should we staff at 110% ? That's a big ask for a TOC to swallow that cost and ultimately its passed to the passenger.

Culturally I think that the excess staff sitting about each day just aren't used productively. I come in, sit in the depot and watch telly. I do not get given a roads refresher, I cannot use the sim, there are no managers to give me a quick assessment and safety briefs etc aren't possible. All because of the way in which the buisness is being run. The buisness culture is ingrained very deep. We need to look at better planning to allow a greater degree of flexibility and instead of seeing staff being unproductive on SP turns etc there needs to be a better use of resources so that employee needs are met in the down times rather than taking staff off booked diagrams and having to use those Rest Day workers or SP turns.

That is just the surface too. With shifts being just as inflexible it means that you cannot be pulled off a late to then be asked to work and early or come n for assessments, briefings etc. On the flip side you also need to have 12hr off before you return safety critical. We work 24/7 but management does not. Neither does the training school. The buisness needs for employees are not met 24/7 so they end up being pulled off an early turn which needs to be covered by overtime.

phew, glad that's over and still not even half the story.

tl;dr "its complicated"

Before it was sold it was never a major problem rostering and diagramming train crew, people who had done this for years were let go, some immediately rehired as consultants as it was realised that it was a job only few could understand and do.

As a staff rep I compiled and helped formulate guards rosters for years and it is safe to say that since privatisation I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of managers who could understand and implement a train crew roster that worked. Unfortunately I would have to hire Wembley Stadium to host the number of managers I encountered who had absolutely no clue on how to compile a train crew roster and once they finished it was absolute chaos.

One manager was determined to introduce a split shift working system with the shift changeover mid-week and was determined to press ahead even when I pointed out that the annual leave roster was worked out on a Sun-Sat shift week and the proposed roster would mean 22 crew on leave etc on one day with only 10 spare turns to cover them.

This is the problem when managers look at a train crew roster merely to save money with no idea on the concept behind it.

 

[thealexweb]

I would support every train, where reasonably possible, going over to DOO and every station, where reasonably possible, going over to being a manned station.

 

[HH]

Culturally I think that the excess staff sitting about each day just aren't used productively. I come in, sit in the depot and watch telly. I do not get given a roads refresher, I cannot use the sim, there are no managers to give me a quick assessment and safety briefs etc aren't possible. All because of the way in which the buisness is being run.

One of the problems is that many rosters are badly done, such that it's actually difficult to cover any turn 'on the day'. But you're also right in that after a point you can't cover anything, so why not at least plan to do something useful at that point? It just seems to be an alien way of thinking to Operations Management.

I've also a theory that Operations Management loves having to sort out problems on the day; so much so that they'd rather not put processes in place to avoid the problems in the first place. This obviously gives rise to the perception that there are staff shortages, even when there aren't any.

 

[ComUtoR]

Multi-skilling is already taking place for station staff (e.g. most staff at LOROL do multiple duties), but it wouldn't work for drivers

I think it will and to an extent it already does. Drivers already carry out briefings and the DI role is certainly a multi-skill. I do find it odd that I can pilot another Driver on a route they don't know and in traction I don't know but I cannot teach a new Driver routes.

There is also differences with how other TOC's teach roads and some use a Driver on a temporary small enhancement when required. They are given that multi-skill and used to meet the buisness needs without requiring overtime and requiring a full DI to be taken off.

As I pointed out. There are times when Drivers are sitting there twiddling their thumbs. Giving them additional skills will allow that downtime to be more productive.

 

[HH]

As a staff rep I compiled and helped formulate guards rosters for years and it is safe to say that since privatisation I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of managers who could understand and implement a train crew roster that worked. Unfortunately I would have to hire Wembley Stadium to host the number of managers I encountered who had absolutely no clue on how to compile a train crew roster and once they finished it was absolute chaos.

Too true. That's why they let the staff do it for them at many TOCs...

There's worse though. At one, ahem recently deceased, TOC most Operations Managers didn't know what a Manpower Plan was, let alone how to do one. It's why they ended up with a driver shortage.

 

[notadriver]

I've got two friends who work on the buses, and neither works split shifts. One has 41 years in the job, and has never worked a split shift in his entire career.

A relative has also worked as a bus driver (he's now on HGV's) and didn't work split shifts either. He said that the hours were much better than the lorries, but the pay not so good.

Not representative, obviously, but I don't think it's as common as might be thought. I think it's more likely in smaller companies who run a few passenger routes and rely mostly on school and contract or private hire work. There are a few like that around here!

A split shift to me is any shift that is 12 hours or longer and I know quite a few companies that have those in London. In the past it may have been possible to have a 4 or 5 hour break in the middle thereby creating a split shift. I wonder now if the work is now distributed more evenly throughout the longer shift so it no longer seems - split.

 

[Greenback]

The local ATW station staff are all multi skilled on paper, but a senior training manager confessed to me in late 2013 that training people up on different roles hadn't started yet. I don't know if it's underway now, but it all seems to illustrate how the industry sometimes moves at a snail's pace. It's been several years since the restructuring that place platform and ticket office staff etc on to the same grade and pay.

My position has always been the same regarding overtime. I did it because I had to, not because I wanted to. If I'd been able to have a decent life on basic, I'd have preferred the time off.

 

[HH]

I think it will and to an extent it already does. Drivers already carry out briefings and the DI role is certainly a multi-skill. I do find it odd that I can pilot another Driver on a route they don't know and in traction I don't know but I cannot teach a new Driver routes.

There is also differences with how other TOC's teach roads and some use a Driver on a temporary small enhancement when required. They are given that multi-skill and used to meet the buisness needs without requiring overtime and requiring a full DI to be taken off.

As I pointed out. There are times when Drivers are sitting there twiddling their thumbs. Giving them additional skills will allow that downtime to be more productive.

Fair point. They are also being multi-skilled in fault-finding, and there had been talk of NR duties on Deep Alliance, before that fell out of favour. I was more referring to mixing driving and revenue collection. Control on the railways is pretty specialised due to all the systems used and the need to interface with NR; it's not like bus.

 

[Greenback]

A split shift to me is any shift that is 12 hours or longer and I know quite a few companies that have those in London. In the past it may have been possible to have a 4 or 5 hour break in the middle thereby creating a split shift. I wonder now if the work is now distributed more evenly throughout the longer shift so it no longer seems - split.

My friends do work 10 hour shifts, but that means they only tend to work a four day week This means that, like many rail staff, they get a group of days off to make a four or five day weekend. It's understandable when you think that they work for First Cymru!

 

[HH]

A split shift to me is any shift that is 12 hours or longer and I know quite a few companies that have those in London. In the past it may have been possible to have a 4 or 5 hour break in the middle thereby creating a split shift. I wonder now if the work is now distributed more evenly throughout the longer shift so it no longer seems - split.

A split shift, by definition, has a break in the middle. As far as I know these long shifts are fully paid, which is the key difference. However I do agree that the maximum lengths are too long - it just wouldn't be allowed in rail. How many 12+ hour shifts there are I don't know. If I was running a London bus operation I would try to avoid them; they won't be efficient (there's a maximum of 10 hours driving) and there's also the fatigue risk (accidents are expensive!).

 

[ComUtoR]

I was more referring to mixing driving and revenue collection. Control on the railways is pretty specialised due to all the systems used and the need to interface with NR; it's not like bus.

Gotchya. Weirdly I can dispatch 600 passengers on a DOO unmanned station but I can't bat n flag

On a more serious note. When I first started I was required to work as a Guard if asked and I could be booked to Guard dispatch on some services. That was removed a few years ago. How many trains since then have been cancelled due to lack of Guard :/

 

[lincolnshire]

I would support every train, where reasonably possible, going over to DOO and every station, where reasonably possible, going over to being a manned station.

I see that,s how the Irish do it between Cobh and Cork, I did wonder where the guard was till I asked the driver is it DOO and the answer was Yes. But they did as suggested above have staff on every station.

 

[HH]

I see that,s how the Irish do it between Cobh and Cork, I did wonder where the guard was till I asked the driver is it DOO and the answer was Yes. But they did as suggested above have staff on every station.

That's the TfL model as well, including LO.

 

[Clip]

I was going to ask how many staff would the OP like to be on the railway but realised the question really is - how deep are your pockets?

 

[northwichcat]

I see that,s how the Irish do it between Cobh and Cork, I did wonder where the guard was till I asked the driver is it DOO and the answer was Yes. But they did as suggested above have staff on every station.

I've done Cork-Cobh and back by train in the past. I seem to recall on the outbound journey there was a ticket check prior to boarding at Cork Kent station, while on the return journey someone did an on-board ticket inspection and no ticket inspection either before boarding at Cobh or after alighting at Cork.

 

[TDK]

A bit more insight.

Rosters
Culturally I think that the excess staff sitting about each day just aren't used productively. I come in, sit in the depot and watch telly. I do not get given a roads refresher, I cannot use the sim, there are no managers to give me a quick assessment and safety briefs etc aren't possible.

Usually if there is a single spare they will sit about in case someone has to come off if there are multiple spares then what we do is scoop the drivers so they can have an early finish, we certainly don't sit about, we also assist on the shed turn. But that is at our depot!

 

[455driver]

A split shift, by definition, has a break in the middle. As far as I know these long shifts are fully paid, which is the key difference.

When I worked split shifts they were not fully paid, why would any bus company want to pay its staff 4 or 5 hours a day for doing nothing!

Also if it is fully paid what happens to the 40 (or whatever) hour week if they are doing 13 hour split shifts with 5 hours off in the middle?

 

[ComUtoR]

...then what we do is scoop the drivers so they can have an early finish

Ahh the old days. /tangent

However in line with my point it is still people sitting about being used unproductively. I would love to help out my colleagues like we used to and you could even do it from a fatigue perspective too.

we also assist on the shed turn. But that is at our depot!

We aren't that fortunate. It is good to hear that some TOC's use SP turns more productively. Fragmented industry, privatization, blah blah... The railways is very inconsistent. Modern buisness practices are almost non existent and "joined up thinking" doesn't happen. Thanks to your post I'll add; on our patch.

 

[AnonymousUser1]

On the surface an increase in staff seems logical and the obvious response to that is the increase in costs. If we skip that unsolvable argument for a minute we need to look at rosters, depot distribution, link working, shift working, part time, and the dreaded casualization.

Huge culture change is needed rather than a simple increase in staff.

culture change is the issue , same as with the NHS

 

[bussnapperwm]

Multi-skilling is already taking place for station staff (e.g. most staff at LOROL do multiple duties), but it wouldn't work for drivers - the training takes 12-18 months for a start, and the additional cost would be huge. Staff are generally on 5 days weeks (drivers are the exception).

How many bus drivers work split shifts? It's not common from what I've seen, at least for the larger operators.

Two companies near to me have drivers who are split shifters....and they're not exactly independents either...ones a large coach operator who's buses in the midlands have started to become crimson...and another is a company who's name is shared with a type of jewelry...