Back to work, shoulder to the grindstone and all that! First off – a meeting with the PPP Arbiter. Who? What? Indeed!

The PPP Arbiter is the guy appointed to watch over and arbitrate on the Tube PPP contract. He cannot comment on what’s in the contract – but where the various parties are in dispute over any aspect of the contract, he can give guidance. He has sweeping powers to gather information – far superior to LU, the Assembly, TfL or the Mayor. Just wish we could get hold of the info he has access to.

Within the limited remit of the position, the PPP Arbiter seemed to be taking a pretty pro-active role. He could sit back and just act as and when there was a statutory requirement for a review of contract performance or for the seven and a half year “break clause” review built into the contract. But he is setting up a methodology which he hopes will be agreed in advance and is seeking to influence and persuade into better performance.

I have gone there with my vice-chair and officers to seek advice as to where the problems between parties involved in the PPP lay. I have coming before my committee (Transport Committee of the London Assembly) Tim O’Toole – the MD of London Underground – and possibly the Chief Execs of both Tubelines and Metronet. I haven’t quite decided on the latter as yet. I want to find the areas of weakness so that the London Assembly can forensically question those responsible for delivering the PPP as to why London is paying through the nose for a seemingly worsening service.

Meanwhile – have received answers to my Mayoral questions on the tube showing that there are hundreds of speed restrictions imposed on our network. These are termed ‘temporary’ restrictions but many have been in place for over 6 months. Just a bit of poking which with the help of the media keeps prodding LU into getting its act together.

Meet Tim O’Toole for lunch. Tim is the hapless American who is over here trying to run London Underground. How a decent, intelligent Southern Gent arrived in the vipers nest of LU is a miracle to me. Lord knows he is caught between the rock of Ken and the Labour Government’s PPP and the hard place of British industrial relations.

I think Tim is a good thing. I think he thinks he can improve the tube – even within the PPP after about 5 years and that he is determined to make the tube accessible. How far he can succeed with our unions or how well he can halt the exacerbation of the failure rate of the tube assets is a toughie. I wish him well. Seems like a man who likes a challenge.

Tim O’Toole, Managing Director of London Underground for Transport for London and generally a good thing was required to present himself before my committee to answer for the tube.

A bit of a challenge – but he’s basically up to it. Lord knows what it must be like to be a smart American lawyer and manager, and then to find yourself running the tube in London – particularly with its industrial relations.

But as I said, Tim’s a smart cookie. He does a great version of pro-active breast beating. For example, last time I had him in to an emergency session of the Transport Committee to answer for the Hammersmith and Fulham and Camden Town derailments, he started by apologising for a ‘parade of failures’.

It is always disarming to an extent when someone comes in and admits their failures when you are used to the vast majority of people in charge defending their position even when totally indefensible.

So once again Tim started by basically admitting that the tube was not performing that well – and that there was a need to lower expectations because the PPP didn’t contract for it to perform that much better.

I thought I played a bit of a blinder myself, when I elicited the information that however well Tim and his boys (sexist but true) managed the tube and got the most you could get out of it through tip-top management techniques – the truth was that performance would still deteriorate because the best management in the world couldn’t keep pace with the deterioration rate of the asset base.

Things can only get worse!

Well we knew that when Labour lost the plot on the tube and stuffed us with the PPP. And thus it is proving to be. My only hope is that there will be a renegotiated PPP contract or an add-on to the PPP contract that will be paid for by the Government to ensure that the standard contracted for in the PPP is raised. The new stations that will come on-line in the first 7 year tract of the contract will make it look better – but to us daily users reliable trains would be a boon.

I suppose we had two ‘victories’ from the morning’s session. Firstly, Tim reported that they had at last found a way to give me what I had been asking for – an easy benchmark for overcrowding.

In Paris (and my own recommendation) the standard is 4 people per square metre. Sadly, Tim is not tempted down this route – but he stated that they have developed a way of adding seconds to the journey time based on levels of overcrowding. This slightly odd approach is based on the fact that penalties for the contractors come into play if journeys take too long – so turning overcrowding into extra journey times means contractors might get penalised. He hasn’t unveiled it properly yet – just giving me a peek at the promised land.

The second piece of good news – also arising from that emergency meeting – was that London Underground have moved to address concerns expressed after the derailments by the unions that when staff raised matters of concern – management took no notice.

Both the infracos (the private companies now in charge of the infrastructure) have developed web based complaints and tracking so both staff and management can see what the complaint was and when logged, what was done, what the progress is and what the outcome is.

So two gold stars for the Assembly! Hoorah!

Chair’s briefing – this is my weekly meeting with Transport Scrutiny officers at the Assembly to plan work program, discuss content of sessions, etc.

Tim O’Toole (TfL’s Director of London Underground – sharp American lawyer) has agreed a date to come to Transport Committee to update us on the tube situation. And there’s quite a list to update – three disasters, poor performance and why Central Line trains may have to go! (My interpretation of what’s happening – nothing they will admit to).

That having been said, I like Tim. He is one smart cookie.

We share a life experience that few do.

A little known incident last year is that I fell down the gap at Embankment tube on the Northern Line. I had always wondered if I could really scream. That day I found out I could. I had been running for a tube train and leapt on board – only to have the doors shut on me. When they reopened I stepped back off the train into the gap. My papers fell into the train, the passengers standing in the doorway space looked horrified, my bag fell on the platform – and I fell down the gap.

My whole life didn’t pass before me – but I did think quickly and made sure that I threw my arms across the doorway so the doors couldn’t close. If the train had moved out I would have been a goner. The guard hauled me out in a flash. (There is one stationed by that gap permanently) and sat me down, gave me water, took my details, etc. Then I went home. Much bruised and battered – but fine.

In telling Tim about this incident he confided in me that a similar thing had happened to him in Chicago. It was an outside train sitting in the station on an icy winter day. The platform was extremely icy and he slipped and slid over the edge of the platform, just by a set of the trains wheels. Half his torso was thus on the platform and the other hanging over the edge. The whistle blew and the train was just moving off when passengers walking by on the platform dragged him clear.

Stays with you a bit – an experience like that.

Reception held by Metronet and Tubelines, the two private consortia now running our tube infra structure. They made positive speeches about their effort and commitment and seemed so genuine. Such a shock and horror then when you see the statistics showing a deterioration in their performance since takeover.

They spent a good chunk of the reception saying that they didn’t recognise the figures published in the newspapers and that they were not accurate. Well – they would – wouldn’t they? That is one of the big problems on the tube – no accurate baseline. No accurate targets that are understandable. No measurable indicators for normal human beings.

Tim O’Toole (Transport for London’s Managing Director of London Underground) was there too. I nobbled him in a corner because my scrutiny officers had said that he didn’t want to come and give evidence to my committee ‘again’. I had hauled him into to answer questions following the tube derailment – rightly!

When cornered – he gracefully conceded that of course he wanted to come. He didn’t know where I got the idea from that he didn’t Of course, it would be better if he came after his report on performance came out in a few weeks. OK! A compromise is fine by me.