Interview
This is thanks to a lot of investment by TfL and focusing on the minute-by-minute operation of the service and management of the stations.’
So LOROL has certainly delivered on TfL’s performance specifications, which are more exacting than those of a franchising arrangement: key elements being a train service regime that has driven up service from 91 per cent of trains being within five minutes of right time PPM in 2007 to just shy of 97 per cent now.
From downtrodden to high-spec
Back to the process of transformation, LOROL inherited a stock of 44 stations that, as Mark Eaton put it, ‘looked dreadful.’ Pointing to his presentation at pictures of environments that wouldn’t look out of place in a crime scene, he joked that they were the very worst examples, ‘but they were definitely run- down and often unstaffed in 2007. So one of the very first things we did was put staff in them to provide a human face, linking back to the Mayoral commitment to do so, and that lifted the atmosphere. The physical environment couldn’t be changed overnight though.’
But it certainly has been changed now, and turning over the page, pictures of gleaming façias, modern ticket halls and fresh paint abound. All of the stations have new systems to a very high spec – CCTV covering 90 per cent of the surface area and 100 per cent of the booking hall, such that one small station of two platforms can have nearly 30 cameras; PA; CIS and help points (one in the booking hall and one on each platform). There was also an ‘ambience upgrade’ involving painted finishes, clean canopies, high quality roundel signage (branding that won’t change even if LOROL goes)...‘And’, Peter Kalton, LOROL’s head of infrastructure, pointed out, ‘we were huge in lighting, so a lot of time and energy was put into finding the ‘Lux’ level of brightness and applying that across stations. Most of the spec went to a higher level than Network Rail managed stations because it was partly linked to London Underground which is much brighter, and I think it has paid off.’
More than a quick lick of paint
One of LOROL’s main aims was that the refurbishment should be durable. Mark Eaton proffered the view that, while station refurbishment specifications aren’t rocket science, ‘many of those close to the industry will have seen quick lick and brush up type upgrades that often happen at the start of franchises and which after four or five years deteriorate and look quite shabby. This was designed to be a bit more deep-rooted and also put right a lot of outstanding repair issues that had built up over time, for example resurfacing the platform – leaving bits of degraded tarmac to look shabby wasn’t tolerable under this programme.’
All in all, the refurbishment went beyond what is traditionally seen as a Toc responsibility, as Peter Kalton explained: ‘It looked slightly beyond the lease areas and at the side of the platform edge. Essentially we viewed things from a customer perspective, not just thinking, ‘Oh we’ve leased this piece of land and therefore we’re only going to spend money on this section.’
Stations are a ‘front door’
Growth in passenger numbers is normally driven by big headline actions such as new train routes, doubling service frequencies, new rolling stock and so on, but Mark Eaton pointed out that LO’s North London Line has seen 27 per cent growth in the last year or so, with none of those actions taking place. ‘What happened is that people found our service to be reliable. They found our stations to be welcoming and freshly presented, and they feel safe and secure as Peter mentioned with all the CCTV and lighting work. We didn’t do that because we had a runaway crime problem, it was to deal with the perception that people had. Stations are our front door so if customers feel comfortable going through that, and first impressions count,
then you attract more people to try the service. And they find the station is staffed, which is a big contributor, they find information systems telling them what they need to know. It all becomes very easy to use, and hey presto there’s the benefit that’s flowing out of the station refurbishment programme.’
Turning designs into reality
The original specifications for the main programme of refurbishment came from TfL, so it was important to start with the two having a ‘very clear and close working relationship’ according to Mark Eaton, in order to get clarity around what the spec meant and how it could be transmuted into designs. ‘As soon as the concession kicked off, we mobilised a project team within the business – aided by personnel from Chiltern, which has done a lot of project work – and that first year was very much about pinning down specifications with our colleagues at TfL.’
One issue at that stage was that TfL’s specifications were quite generic according to Peter Kalton: ‘The question was how to apply them across stations that varied considerably from 60s to Victorian. So each station had to go through an iterative design process which required a lot of cooperation with TfL, and there were some challenging debates around that. After all, a Victorian listed station by its very nature could suck up millions of pounds.’
‘Another challenge the industry always faces with station refurbishment,’ added Mark Eaton, ‘is that you start to uncover things. You find the condition of the footbridge metalwork is much worse than anybody thought, or the drains or power supplies. So there was a need for common sense designs and outputs in light of that.’
March 2013 Page 19
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