Met line service - service suspensions summer 2021

Much of ‘medical’ London is adjacent to Barbican (St. Bartholomew’s), Kings Cross (Francis Crick Institute), Euston Square (University College Hospitals London) Gt. Portland and Baker Streets (the whole of the Harley Street complex) and Paddington (St. Marys). Many of the 10,000s of personal, who work 12.5 hours (8h00-20h30 and 20h00 to 8h30) shifts rely on the Metropolitan to get them to and from work and northwest London. I know this from personal experience. It’s sadly not unusual to ‘lose’ the occasional patient during your shift or to literally have to spend hours cleaning up the messes they leave for no fault of their own. Then you add the insecurity of not being certain you will be able to get home after your shift to have sufficient rest before you return for another 12.5 hours. That’s the story which really needs to be told to management whose responsibility this crisis is. I know from the driving, station and ‘behind the scenes’ LUL workers that they’d move heaven and earth to keep the service moving. If anyone here has a voice with those who are ‘managing’ this crisis, please point out that they might just not have the optimal service should they be rushed into hospital purely and simply due to lack of planning and communications.

Mods feel free to delete or modify this as you see fit

All I can say in response to taylor's comments, is that the management are aware of the situation - I know that one of the Service Control Managers (the one who is in overall charge of the Service Control staff on a line) at Hammersmith has been working on the Controller's desk in the last few weeks to cover the gaps, in addition to their day job.

I'm sure others can give a more concise view of what's happening, but this is my understanding of it.

The causes of the shortages are two/three-fold. Firstly, there have been some industrial relations issues at Hammersmith Service Control Centre. These have existed for a while but the outcome is that a number of controllers have moved to other control rooms elsewhere on the network. This leaves a shortage at Hammersmith, which in normal times would be a relatively short-term measure whilst new controllers are recruited and trained. However, controller training is like Train Operator training - it isn't something that can be delivered remotely, or simulated, at least not 100%. The training process for controllers consists of a theory element (which is partly in a simulated environment), and then a practical element on the line the trainee controller will be working on when qualified. This latter part is done 1:1 with an existing controller who is accredited to train.

Of course, in 2020, Covid-19 hit, and an immediate outcome was that all training was suspended, before restarting with reduced numbers for social distancing. This has affected training for a number of roles, including both Train Operators and Controllers. On sheer numbers alone, there are more Train Operators than Controllers - meaning that a reduction of Controllers will be felt much more quickly (and more acutely) than a shortage of Train Operators will. It's also very difficult to properly socially distance when training a controller - where a Train Operator and their instructor will be occupying seats on opposite sides of the cab, with a degree of distance between them, a controller will usually be sitting right next to their trainee, particularly in the early stages of practical training.

Covid-19 has also affected controllers who aren't training, and they have had to take time off isolating because they have either been infected or because they have been in contact with someone who has tested positive. Like many others, I've had a period of self-isolation this year after a potential exposure to someone who has tested positive for Covid, and I know several people who have had to self-isolate more than once. Apply that to a small group of people with a specific skill-set, like Controllers, and you can start to appreciate the problem - especially considering the environment they work in, where the same group of people are together in a room without opening windows (sometimes without windows) for up to 12 hours at a time. A single positive test in a control room takes out the entire shift in one go; and at Hammersmith that means potentially controllers for both Met and District, their line Information Specialists, Service Managers, Signallers, and Technical Support staff.

The industrial relations issues, together with Covid affecting staff availability and training, have come together to cause a perfect storm. For most of the last fifteen months Service Control as a whole has worked a lot of overtime to cover absent staff and vacancies. But there's only a certain amount of overtime you can work before either you have to have a rest period (because of Safety Critical Working rules) or you get burnt out or fed up and can't do any more. There's also the small matter of Annual Leave - you can't defer Annual Leave except in special cases and those who did defer leave in 2020 to cover shortages are now having to take it in bulk or else lose it.

And that, in a nutshell, is why the service has to be suspended - because only one controller is rostered and there is no cover. The priority has understandably been to cover shifts on Mondays to Fridays, and evenings and weekends will end up being adversely affected as this is when demand is traditionally lower. Nobody wants to cause disruption, but we have to live with the reality that if you have to make a decision which is going to cause disruption you will naturally try to cause the least disruption, and that it's impossible to please everybody all of the time.

Thank you for your considerate explanation Tom. It is the kind passengers would understand and, albeit inconvenienced, by and large support. Management should know that. It really is a pity that the commitment to communication, in the DNA of the organization for over a century, is MIA at some levels.

“Careless Conduct Costs Lives” “Wear your masks! Sanitize your hands! Stand apart! Help keep yourselves and those running your trains healthy!” “Remember, many unseen Underground employees, who are needed to keep trains running, work in close proximity between technical environments where social distancing is very difficult. If just one tests positive, that person’s whole team may have to self-isolate. If that happens in a control room a whole line will be badly affected. If it happens twice (it takes many weeks of one-to-one teaching to train another) then it’s a disaster for us and you, as consequences over the past few weeks have shown. Please do your bit!”

I don't, I'm afraid.

I am sure that where gaps are identified in good time plans will be in place to either arrange cover or notify passengers, but it can never be 100% guaranteed until the member of staff sits down at the control desk - and even then they could be notified by Test and Trace mid-shift - when I was notified I was in the middle of a meeting (though thankfully a virtual one).

At one point there was an initiative to offer staff Lateral Flow Tests at work, before they started their shift - and this can cause a last-minute problem if someone gets a positive result just seconds before they're due to take over. I don't know if it's still running for Service Control, but I understand that twice weekly testing is one of the mitigations employed to enable Train Operator training to recommence.

Met and Chiltern suspended again

With the best will in the world, there are only so many Met controller’s available and they are susceptible to an NHS track & trace or app notification to self isolate as much as anyone else.

That may or may not be the case on this occasion but that is the most likely explanation for last minute unavailability.

To be fair, I had inside info though it wasn’t official enough to state it as fact.

What is annoying that TfL have obviously updated media outlets that the line is closed for the rest of the day, but have not stated this on their own status feed or told their own Twitter team. Also the status feed refers people to seek alternative transport with Chiltern but fails to clarify that the Marylebone - Amersham - Aylesbury route is also suspended for the same reason.

And whilst I accept that management are on the back foot trying to respond to this, they have failed to also state whether they have arranged anything with Carosel Buses out in Bucks/Herts, or if there will be any attempt at a rail replacement bus service.

It just seem that they're just not trying and have just given up. There's so many essential workers who will now be inconvenienced and have no idea if there will be a service tomorrow.

So line control seemingly restarted around 9pm yesterday, and Chiltern did manage to run a few evening services over the met line. But as far as I can tell there were no Met Line services at all after 9pm despite the line being open?

Quite simply it is a matter of logistics - even if control cover is available from 2100 it’s going to be another 30 minutes or so until trains can start coming out of depots - assuming you even have train crews at the depots.

No meaningful service - particularly with a Wembley event - is going to be provided before around 2230-2300 due to the length of the line, but now that it is nominally ‘open’ people will be wanting to access stations and wait for trains.

The Met service starts ramping down from 2300 anyway, again due to the length and location of stabling locations, so immediately all the trains you’ve just brought out and diverted or reformed onto their booked workings are now being put away - leading to more extended headways and even the potential for journeys to not be completed.

Whilst it may seem, at face value, poor to not restart services when there is a controller available, it is the least worst option for those travelling from a safety and service perspective.

this weekend:

Does the Tube contract back retired workers? (Some places do.) Of course, they would need refresher training on the skills/competencies, but it would be faster than training up from scratch.

At the start of the Covid restrictions, plans were put in place to allow recently retired Service control staff to return to their old roles on a temporary basis. Unfortunately this involved bringing them back on a casual contract via an agency, which was obviously unacceptable to the trades unions. I know there was a Service manager on the Jubilee that did briefly come back, but not sure if anyone else was involved, before the plan was put on hold

The service status message is political rather than factual.

Each line has an individual set of rules dictating what constitutes minor or severe delays. I have no idea what they are for each line but unless a particular threshold is met the line as a whole will continue display a particular status message despite whatever may be going at a very specific local level.