Revenue Inspectors

London Buses "Revenue Protection Inspectors" to have the ability to report drivers, yes, and they do.
RPI is a non-safety critical job so I doubt they'll be checking on the Underground any time soon, however IIRC the contract does state that they can check on any "mode", (but obviously if they don't have the duties for it then they wont)!

London Underground "Revenue Control Inspectors" I rarely see checking tickets anyway. Most of the time they're being used as Supervisors or towards minimum numbers in my experience.

Perhaps a merger of the LU, LO and ST (buses) revenue depatments will be suggested by "Project Horizon"? For many years LU RPIs have been paid far more than their bus colleagues and, in LRT days, many transferred over to LU from LBL. I would imagine any new combined grade would base wages on the ST end of the pay scale and probably justify this by removing the LU role from operational/safety critical duties. Yes, Mr Crow would moan but as long as existing staff have their salaries protected, I think you'd find there would be little opposition (witness the changes to LU duty manager roles which occured without strike action).

I think the bus RPIs are employed by the individual bus operators (Arriva, First, National Express, etc) so would TfL want to take on the extra staff at this time? Same with London Overground’s people, pretty sure not directly TfL employees.

Could you do revenue work on the Tube or Overground without being safety critical, would need to look at the Regs for that one. If you could merge all the revenue staff into one the unions would certainly want wages to be the same as they’d be doing the same job and I can’t see the LUL RCIs wanting to take a pay cut.

As for the changes to Duty Manager grade believe me there is plenty of moaning still going on and plenty of unhappy DTSMs looking for a way out. Applications for the 150 voluntary redundancies last year were way oversubscribed, this is not a happy time to be a Duty Manager at LUL.

I was always under the impression that bus inspectors in London were provided by TfL not the varied operators. The ones I've seen all wear TfL hi-vis (as opposed to a WorstBus/etc one) and have given instructions to drivers of multiple operators - which I couldn't see happening if they were employed by individual cowboys. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I saw an advert for them on the TfL website not so long ago. Under the TfL system I don't think there's any incentive for operators to collect revenue.

Shows how much attention I pay when I'm asked to produce my staff pass, I'll ask next time I see one.

Yes, there WAS a recent advertisement for Revenue Protection Inspectors on the TfL website, whom DO employ them.

Those working on buses do NOT check either the Underground OR Overground.

LUL and presumably London Buses too, revenue staff are also PACE trained, that may have a nudge to their salary. Plus LU RCIs hold Station Supervisor licences (which LU found so incredibly useful during strikes and allowed some to do 13 hour shifts).
TfL bus staff have also been spotted working on stations as CSAs!

I'm sure it was Revenue (Surface) for Buses and Trams, then Revenue (Rail) for LU, LO? Serco obviously do RC for DLR and riverboats are done by the respective comapnies?

They are certainly employed directly by TfL, under the CSEP directorate - as such I'm in the middle of applying internally through source.

As I understand it LOROL is a privately owned TOC operating the London Overground franchise just like e.g. First Great Western operate the Greater Western franchise.
The difference being that TfL rather than the DfT are the ones who contract out the franchise, and they (TfL) have chosen a different way of allocating the revenue. Very simply I think it's a case of the DfT say to franchisees "You pay us a set fee, but keep all the revenue. If you make more money fee you make a profit, if you make less money you make a loss". whereas TfL say "We keep all the revenue and pay you a fee to operate the service. If the revenue is greater than the fee we make a profit, if it is less we make a loss.". TfL also control the branding whereas the DfT leave the branding to the franchisee.

Come 2014/16, assuming the same model is used by TfL (and I've not seen any suggestion that they will change it), then either LOROL will be reawarded the franchise for another X years or the franchise will be awarded to a different bidder. In either case the passenger will still see the trains branded as "London Overground", but the frontline staff may be getting their wage slips from a different company.

Definatly TfL bus staff at Victoria. I thought it was unusual having a white shirt on the gateline - so asked them an easy technical question. As they looked even more gormless, I asked who they worked for - It was in a bus station somewhere!

The RCIs were mistakingly left out of the axing of station staff ballot, which allowed some to do 13 hour days, others to assualt staff, some probably did go on strike or refuse to do the work that is not theirs.

Thinking about office staff in operational roles, during the strike by conductors at Scotrail over the extension of DOO on the new Airdrie to Bathgate route, the First group recruited office staff to work trains on a one week crash course!

I don't think it's quite as simple as that with most TOCs - they are paid a fee by the Government to run the franchise, and keep the revenue. However, they also pay money back to the Government in the form of premiums! This is before you get into all the other relationships e.g. with other TOCs via ORCATS, delay repay claims, ROSCOs... and so the privatised railway gravy train goes on!

It sounds like the LOROL contract is similar to what was latterly proposed for East Coast - i.e. a private company is contracted to "manage" the service, being paid a fixed management fee with the Government taking the revenue.

If memory serves you can work anywhere provided you have the right licence and your familiarisation is up to date, think six months from when you last worked there or your last familiarisation. At simple stations like Dagenham Heathway, Buckhurst Hill or even Bayswater the familiarisation could be done in an hour as there’s not much to see, somewhere like Oxford Circus or King’s Cross could take a day or even two. And if you are working down on the JLE you’d have to do the PEDs course.



CSAs aren’t that much different which is why I doubt very much if the bus employee at Victoria was acting as a CSA. They’d have to know how the gateline worked if it was in operation and have to hold a licence to cover both fire and the escalators. They might have been sent to help out with enquiries but if they didn’t hold the fire licence and weren’t familiarised they wouldn’t count towards minimum staffing levels.

Actually you’re right, TSSA only balloted the staff that were effected by the cuts so the RCIs would have been excluded from the strike but I thought RMT balloted everybody inc RCIs and TOps. Haven’t heard about RCIs assaulting staff, just one RMT TOp allegedly verbally abusing a manager on the gateline at Kennington and a RMT official getting a conviction. Whatever happened to Bobby Laws……?