Interview
Jeremy Long
trains than ever before. ‘The level of contingency planning
carried out by the LOROL team over many months in conjunction with Network Rail meant that during the Olympic period we were able to operate very successfully at levels of peak traffic we had never encountered before,’ says Long. ‘We were running at about 25 per cent above our normal loadings over an extended period during the Olympic Games.’
Working with TfL
The working relationship with TfL has also been key. ‘We have a very good relationship with TfL at all levels,’ says Long. ‘We have worked very closely since winning the concession in delivering a turnaround in the Overground business in almost every respect: improved operating performance, improved customer service, improved quality of the product – backed by TfL’s investment in the system.’ This included employing some
of MTR’s wider range of skills. ‘TfL procured the new fleet of trains from Bombardier, the Class 378s, for London Overground, and awarded the long-term fleet maintenance contract to Bombardier. As London Overground, however, we were then responsible for overseeing their introduction. Subsequently we have worked very closely with Bombardier to secure the improving performance of those trains.’ MTR also provided direct support as
TfL brought the East London Line into the London Overground network.
‘At various
stages of the delivery of the project,’ Long explains ‘MTR brought project executives
over to assist TfL in the delivery of the overall programme itself. That proved helpful to TfL in providing a different aspect of MTR’s expertise over and above the operating responsibilities we had within the LOROL concession.’
Looking forward These are all experiences that Long wants to put to good use on up-coming franchises and concessions such as Thameslink and Crossrail, where in both cases major infrastructure programmes will be completed while new fleets of trains are introduced, and all while an operator is expected to deliver ever higher levels of performance. TfL will let Crossrail as another
concession and Long seems keen to work with them again saying, ‘I am sure we will be a keen bidder for Crossrail in due course.’ And while he is clear that no final decision will be made by MTR until it has seen what requirements TfL is making of its concession holder, Long believes that, ‘TfL will be looking for Crossrail to be a truly worldclass railway operation.’
Mergers on the cards Long will not talk about the Thameslink franchise as MTR is a shortlisted bidder in the ongoing procurement process (albeit that the process was suspended at the time of this interview). However, the next Thameslink franchisee will have a merger to deal with, when the current franchise operation is joined with most of what is currently Southern’s route, and some of the existing Southeastern franchise. Asked about such mergers, Long
explains that a few years ago MTR merged with the former operations of KCRC – another long established railway business in Hong Kong. Over two or three years of planning, MTR and KCRC management put together what became a very successful merger of the two operations in 2007. The combined business doubled in size and continues to perform at very high levels.
Staff and culture change There were two key ways in which MTR achieved this, according to Long. The first was preparation, which ensured that the transformation that seemed to customers to have happened overnight was meticulously planned. The second was that MTR worked
tirelessly to engage with staff to achieve a common culture. Long sees this staff engagement as
central to MTR’s commitment to driving continuous improvement. ‘In companies that have successfully adopted continuous improvement processes, what you see is engagement of staff throughout the organisation, so that they themselves can participate directly in improving the business. ‘That is certainly the case in MTR,
where we have a programme of what we call work improvement teams throughout the organisation. At any point in time there will be teams working to solve particular current business issues and coming forward with solutions from their own knowledge and crossteam expertise. It is one of the ways in which everybody can participate in making a better
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