Coronavirus Implications For London's Transport

Could a lack of sponsor not be due (in part) to covid uncertainy?

www.mylondon.news/news/zone-1-news/night-tube-back-2-london-21854499

Central and Victoria lines back next month. Good luck :-)

Given previous comments about the lack of drivers currently causing "shortage of trains," especially on the Central Line and at weekends, this news, while welcome, is bound to cause even more daytime disruption as drivers are moved to cover the Night Tube services.

Unless there are already new drivers / cross transfers currently being trained up (unlikely?) I would imagine, as there is an extra payment to do a Night Tube shift, there would probably be enough volunteers, but to the detriment of services during the day. And if there were not enough, presumably "pool" drivers would be forced to cover the shifts?

From a training point of view we have been working hard on getting people trained since July. The backlog of newly promoted people in training when Covid hit has been cleared and I believe we're now into the tail end of of cross line transfers that were delayed by Covid. What that essentially means is that we've got a gap of about nine months or so of new promotions across the combine to make up for so we're in a much better place than we were four months ago.

Whilst I've been on annual leave for the past couple of weeks, the "train cancelations" status message seems to have dropped off the radar which indicates signs of improvement.

Each line/depot will paint a different picture though. For example on the District line Upminster has been eagerly awaiting cross transfer's from other depots but that's been held up by depots like Earls Court awaiting newly promoted drivers. As the newly promoted drivers pass out they release the cross transfers to move on to their new depots and this is what is now happening.

As already mentioned on this forum, night tube will be operated in a different way to how it was previously operated with full time drivers rather than a select group of part time drivers operating the train service. I would therefore assume that the Central and Victoria lines are actually in a better position than other lines are currently to enable them to restart night tube.

Of course there is another side to night tube staffing and that is the stations - they also need enough to keep stations open though arguably that's easier to achieve at short notice as station staff can work pre-planned overtime.

This sounds like very good news, and now that the training of new people has been mentioned, I realise that it is quite a while since I heard of the Met line (and other services which depend on its signalling staff) closing down because of a lack of signalling staff in the control room.

Government funding extended by a week, apparently! Today's TfL press release says: TfL continues to discuss funding requirements with DfT for the period beyond 11 December 2021 and understands that Government intends to extend the current arrangements to 17 December 2021. We await confirmation of that extension and its terms.

As an individual who has access to the internal version of the same page, I'd suggest that this isn't being kept quite up to date.

Shortage of train operators. A number of new signal operators and service controllers have been passed out over the last few months to alleviate the service control issues.

A further extension of TfL’s current deal now takes them up to 4 February. No longer term plan as yet! That will not be far short of financial year end in April. They expect only one further year of support beyond that.

How is the service performing with current virus problems? Little posted here in recent times.

Service changes on London Overground this week:

Exactly as shown on the map;
-Victoria line
-Central line between Ealing Broadway and Hainault/Loughton (non-stopping East Acton both)
-London Overground between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate.

The Piccadilly and Jubilee lines are pencilled (I stress pencilled) in to return on 15 May with the Northern line following later in the year.

Government funding support for TfL expires again on this Friday, 4 February, with still no word of an extension to aid longer-term planning of works, etc.

The short & simple answer is no.

London Underground is currently seeing around 50% of pre covid levels and London buses around 70%. National Rail is at about 45%.

Whilst there is certainly room for the leisure & tourism element to pick up some more, I don't see the regular commuters returning fully to their previous levels as some workplaces (offices primarily of course) have adapted the way they work and are now less reliant on having all their employee's at a fixed work place for all five days of the working week.

We are a long long way from TfL being self financing again.