TfL commissioner: We need to make people feel safe on public transport

Andy Byford, the man charged with rescuing London’s ghostly public transit system from financial Armageddon, is supremely unruffled by the task at hand.

Yes, the pandemic has left TfL’s finances in “tatters”, he admits — passenger demand on the Tube dropped to about five per cent of capacity during lockdown, TfL’s revenue plummeted 90 per cent and the network burned through its £2 billion “rainy day” reserve so quickly it has had to ask the Government for a £3.5 billion bailout.

“But I like a big challenge,” says the new Transport Commissioner, whose reputation for turning around networks is built on superb stints in Sydney, Toronto and most recently New York (where impressed New Yorkers nicknamed him the “Train Daddy”).

For London, signing up Byford is a huge coup. A slight, wiry man with the build of a distance runner, Byford has a focused serenity that he brings to the most chaotic to-do lists. Two months in his new job “feel longer”.

He also wants to seize the reins of the overdue Crossrail project “to make sure there is no further slippage or increase in cost”. Byford is furious that Crossrail’s opening may have slipped to 2022.

“I want control of that project,” he says. “I want control sooner rather than later. All I’m arguing is that if I’m to be held accountable — and I should be, I invite that — for the opening of it, I want to make sure there is no further slippage”.

He wants it running next year — even if it has to be Christmas Eve. To do that he wants to take full charge of the project now. Both the Mayor and the Department for Transport are said to support this and would like to get it done.

In other words, Byford has quite the in-tray. He’s clear that a city without a functioning metro system “will grind to a halt”.

So, how does he get bums back on seats? “I believe passionately that the system is safe to use,” says Byford, 55, whose first job in transport was station manager at Regent’s Park. “It’s cleaner than it’s ever been.”

He’s introduced a raft of measures: £10 million for cleaning on every part of TfL’s network; £2.3 million on top of that for Covid-related, hospital-grade cleaning of gates, handrails, “essentially anything anyone touches”; independent “scrutineers” from Imperial College to check for Covid-19 on surfaces (no samples have returned positive); 1,000 hand sanitisers; a trial of devices that blast handrails with UV light, killing the virus.

Mandatory face coverings are enforced by British Transport Police and staff. If anyone doesn’t comply, the policy is “to engage with people and make sure they understand the requirement and establish if they have an exemption, then to direct them to where they can acquire a face covering, or to provide one in some instances. Travel can be refused if someone doesn’t comply, and fines are issued if appropriate.” He’s also in dialogue with businesses, to lobby them to stagger core working hours.

Commuters are still wary. Tube passenger numbers are down 69 per cent year on year (on buses it is 43 per cent). “I was taken aback when I came back here for my job interview and encountered a ghost town,” says Byford. “I found it depressing, to be honest.”

What would he say to reassure me, I ask. “We’re saying, ‘We’re ready where you are.’ But the perception is different from the reality — we get that, we get the psychology. We need to make sure people feel safe, not just that they are safe.”

He added: “There’s been a lot of cleaning during the day deliberately so people see cleaning taking place”.

3.8bn

passenger journeys on London’s public transport in a normal year

£10m

TfL’s Covid cleaning budget

72%

of TfL’s revenue is passenger fares

£11.7bn

TfL’s debt pile

£423m

The network’s operating deficit

250,000

children expected to use London buses daily from this week

£18.7bn

Estimated cost of Crossrail 1, almost £3.5bn above total set out in 2018

£355,000

Commissioner’s basic salary

Although trains are hardly packed, TfL is running nearly a full service “because that’s how you maintain social distancing”. But “you have to have somewhere to go to. Until and unless offices and attractions open en masse, our ridership will be down.”

Inconsistent messaging hasn’t helped. While a government ad campaign began this week, encouraging return to the workplace, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said he cares more about employee performance than where staff work.

“People are frustrated with the messaging generally,” says Byford. “It certainly helps me if the elected leaders are saying the same thing and positively asserting that public transport is safe to use.” He hasn’t spoken directly to Boris Johnson but he speaks to Sadiq Khan every week.

Will mass transit ever recover to pre-Covid levels? “I don’t have a crystal ball,” says Byford. “We won’t return to a full ridership anytime soon, which obviously has huge implications for our finances.”

Another task is to secure a new funding deal from government. Covid, he says, exposed a model that was “72 per cent reliant on fare box income. We’d be naive and irresponsible to say that it’s never going to happen again. Pandemics are a reality of modern life. This won’t be the last one.”

The “holy grail” is to secure a 20-year central government funding deal, he says. He’s confident he can make the case. Fares, frozen for four years, will be reviewed. A government requirement in the funding deal for TfL in May is that the Mayor puts up fares by RPI plus one per cent in January. However, there have been calls for national fares to be frozen.

Byford likes to talk of TfL as one family. His father, grandfather and grandfather’s uncle all drove London buses. Frontline conditions became a flashpoint during the Covid-19 peak: 33 bus drivers died of Covid-related illnesses (before Byford’s appointment).

What’s the position on culpability? “That’s for my legal team. What we have done is make sure the families are looked after and we do everything possible to protect staff.” Some 9,000 buses have been retooled; drivers’ cabins are now airtight.

The size of the job is enormous. “My wife’s away so I’m working stupid hours,” he says. Has it ever felt too much? “Never.” But “not once have I thought this is an impossible job. I absolutely believe we can finish off the Elizabeth line [Crossrail] and open with no further delay and no further cost. I also believe there’s a deal to be done with government. And purely because in both cases we have to fix this. It must be done.”

Byford has a glowing track record. But everything here is on the line.

Read more

Transport for London asks for second bailout amid £5bn funding crisis

Read full Q&A with new TfL commissioner Andy Byford

TfL’s new boss worked wonders in New York — we’re lucky to have him