RMT (and TSSA) reps have submitted the following objections to management's proposed new rosters for the group.

New BNS General Objections

This is a general report in outline the problems at all our stations should this plan for cutting back staff go ahead

Our first point is to explain that these new schematics and panned rosters have not been agreed at our functional levels whether RMT or TSSA. All level one groups involved in this study do not agree or accept these new proposals.

One of the main worries on the entire group is not being able to answer the help points at many lone working stations. According to the new rosters many lone working supervisors will be required to man the booking hall for most of their shift which makes it impossible to answer these communication devices. You see our customers have got used to this facility and make a lot of use with them. Nowadays we receive most of our distress calls through these help points as they have been very well attended for quite some time now. There is a feeling of loss when staff are not available to help customers in this way. As far as the emergency button is concerned, we do consider this as a health and safety matter. Sunlight reflecting on monitors is also a problem where staff is required to be in position until asked to stop by operating official.

The Acton Town Group has 11 stations which are all over ground. This presents a different set of problems and needs when it comes to staff attendance; many of our stations have points which need attending at times along with section switches which needs extra staff to assist with the carrying and the handling of equipment that has to be bought to the track when performing these operations. We have track fires that you rarely see in tunnel stations. Supervisors are called to attend things blown on to the tracks such as customer’s personal items or tree branches etc.

We have adverse whether to contend with such as heavy rain and snow which can make our platforms unsafe if not attended to right away. Icy platforms needs to have “ice melt” applied to every area which is very time consuming.

Many of our stations have engineering staff almost every night so more time for inspections are necessary too.

We feel that lowering staff levels to this bare minimum is going to have a major impact on all this, and our high record for excellent customer service is going to plummet as these needs are not going to be able to be attended to with the swiftness that we are able to now.

During hot weather we have problems with nosing stones and tactiles popping up which require group cover staff when available. Losing group cover staff will put this in jeopardy. The fear of having to close platforms may come to reality when there will be no staff available to attend these situations, particularly when it comes to having to inform train operators of any signal problems or people on the track nearby. As we well know these days we have to put staff in positions to inform drivers personally which is taking maybe in the future, more man recourses than we will actually have.

There is no cover for a Supervisor to go off station when they are on their unpaid meal break. As we know supervisors will still be able to go off the station at these times, but this will leave stations with points vulnerable and could hold up train services. This is not only a problem with points but a problem for example when staff are to be on the platform to give train operators instructions or safety critical information. This could mean platform closures.

There is little thought given to special needs customers within this tight roster many of our impaired customers will lose this valuable attention they have been used to under the present roster.

Working alone adds to stress with more responsibility and compromises staff wellbeing. Research shows that people working alone are more prone to suffer mental health issues, (Dr R K Singh professor and author). People can become monophobic. Also on the subject of lone working staff motivation and morale will plummet as they will be less able to keep a relationship with their customers or indeed continue to go that extra mile as they do today.

We will have problems with the witnessing of cash collections and banking itself.

According to BTP, the requests for CCTV data collections have been on the rise, figures are around 500 per month on the whole combine. We fear that this will rise further as staff at the moment act as a crime deterrent by simply being there. When staff are working alone or not able to be seen this will be a problem on BTP resources and crime will increase on the underground making customers more unsafe travelling on the system during the dark hours.

Certain tickets are not available on self service ticket machine such as
Privilege tickets
Group tickets
Any rail card discounted tickets

Other problems that can only be resolved by station staff

• They have a failed Oystercard?
• They have an unresolved journey which has put them on a negative balance? (This is not technically true but it must be said that unresolved journies do prevent loading new tickets to Oyster cards)
• They want to obtain an Oystercard?
• They want to register their Oystercard?
• They require a refund due to a breakdown in service?
• POM breakdowns?
• Lost money in POMs & note/coin jams occur?

With the large scale reduction of CSA’s as well as SAMF’s how are station staff expected to provide the same level of service to VIP’s, PIOT’s, drunks and bad behaviour on trains and called to assist? Deal with emergency incidents and meeting Emergency Services or Breakdowns in service and station evacuations and closures? Helping customers with luggage and pushchairs, answering Help Points, providing local and general knowledge and information, large groups travelling, such as parties of school children? Staffing platforms when safety requires, e.g. OPO failures, crumbling nosing stones and signal aspect failures? Also securing points, section switches and other operational requirements and completing EIRF’s? When required to place information on Train Operators notice boards , as well as conducting routine duties such as PA’s, station and other safety checks, raising jobs with the FRC , contractors, tenants and the remaining staff we have, signing in, as well as conducting staff familiarisations to name some?

These rosters have been poorly conceived, with no allowance given for the above situations. There has been no consultation or of gaining any prior knowledge of each stations individual circumstances, or having due consideration for the impact such changes will have and indicates a desire to push these reforms through, at haste, and as yet, little evidence of how we will be able to operate a safe and efficient railway and maintain customer service.

It is clearly apparent why staff remain totally sceptical of these proposals and indeed concerned that the safety and wellbeing of themselves, their colleagues and our customers is being compromised.

Acton Town

There is a fire evacuation panel which needs to be kept close to by staff in case of call points being activated, plus lift alarms and very busy help points which are used in abundance around the time of any last trains. Under the new schematics the, TSS is supposed to be detraining on platform 3 and 4. The night supervisor books on many contractors at this time as well as monitoring the devices mentioned above. Adding to this, stations on the group are calling in with their closure details. This makes it impossible to see out the last west bound trains, there is simply no one available at all. Remember the CSA is needed on the gate line as we have many customers with questions at this time of night especially Friday and Saturday nights. Our total number of scheduled detrainments over a week adds up to 52 which ties any staff member to platforms 3 and 4; this is without any unscheduled detrainments that occur quite frequently.

The fire control panel as well as the call points help points and lift alarms can go off at any time, which make it very difficult for the supervisor to leave the office for any long period. Losing CSA’s here has a major impact, as when supervisors are asked to attend an incident a CSA now stays in the office to man this equipment in order to maintain customer service and our safety record.

The west bound platform seems to have no room for staff according to the new BNS. This is a very busy spot for this station. Ok we have a supervisor who is responsible for assisting with reforming trains, contacting bodies regarding the availability of drivers, letting people know where trains are and how soon trains are going to arrive at their station along with liaising with DMT’s, plus at times giving train number information to signal operators, and one to one contact with our customers when they have to be removed from trains due to cancelations or reformations. When a train needs to be tipped out it is not just a matter of getting customer off the train, it can take a long time to evacuate a train when the platform is busy and when customers are asking for information. We need a CSA down there to give announcements, assist with detrainments, and respond to customers needs. During busy times of detrainments and particularly if a train is diverted away from Rayners Lane or Uxbridge, people do get very irate and confrontation is much more likely. The only way to calm this is to source and then announce information as soon as possible.

Still on the west bound platform. Most of our incidents occur here. As we have mentioned already, we have numerous detrainments, diverted trains as well as people generally changing from the District line or even to other Piccadilly line destinations. Many of our customers are travelling to the airport and have little or no English at all. This is when we really need to have face to face customer care and assistance as all the announcements under the sun will not get them on the right train.

The majority of our EIRF’s have involved incidents on the west bound platform as this is where we seem to have more confrontational customers, things being dropped on the track, monitoring crowding and giving information to local bus services in the area when our services go down. Customers ask for 11 different destinations when our service fails, all of which involve taking more than one bus and a lot of staff recourses.

We also have problems when train destinations boards give wrong information and we have to give train numbers to the signal operators when there is a problem with the service. We do emphasise on service problems but we have to stress that no matter where a problem occurs on the Piccadilly all stations as far as even Wood Green tell their customers to change at Acton Town. You can imagine how busy this makes our station; we need staff here as part of giving customer service and for safety reasons. Please also note that we had three people under a train here in the last three years. Losing three CSA’s at this busy interchange is simply not acceptable when you look at how much we have on our plates here.

When something goes wrong on another Acton Town Group station we are requested to send a member of staff to assist with the problem. Being an open section group, problems such as, dislodged tactile paving stones, OPO failures, adverse weather conditions or even staff having to give train operators information face to face when a bulb fails on a signal, are not uncommon. There are 11 outside station on this large group and we are pressed to give staff at these times as it is. We fear that we will not be able to man some of our small stations due to lack of staff if this new roster does indeed happen. We fear platform closures when in the hot weather when a few stations have the tactile rising problem as they have in the past.

There are 4 stations between Acton Town and Hammersmith; most of the time the Piccadilly operates non-stop between Acton Town and Hammersmith. This area has many signals and on many occasions staff are requested to be face to face with every driver in order to inform them of any problems occurring in this area. Doing the maths this makes it 4 times more likely to have this problem than any other station on the entire line.

The information booth is an essential part of this station, not only for customers but for stations on our entire group. Line controllers and signal operators call there for train numbers and ask us to pass information to drivers on both Piccadilly and District lines. We pass information to stations either side regarding next trains. We source information for our customers there and we are able to provide written information or even answers to questions that we can find from the internet that is printed out for them. Station staff use this facility throughout the whole traffic day too, a supervisor maybe attending an incident which occurs often due to the complexity of points and signals here. At times this office is used to call emergency services, to house a member of public from the cold or heat when they become ill or need emergency services. We cannot afford to cut this important recourse from our station.

There is a proposal that we have only one CSA for all last trains and one supervisor to do all detrainments. We have always put safety first when doing this operation late at night. We are able to tip these trains out late at night more efficiently and with less confrontation from drunks or able to assist a sleeping passenger off a train when two staff members have been present, and whilst keeping open the information booth. Remember this also acts as an excellent lockable place of safety and we are able to calm customers down who can no longer get home by train by being able to get connecting service information from the internet there. This of course will be very different with just one staff member detraining and an information booth that will be closed during this time. Please realise how much more at risk our staff is going to be.

We were told of the methods used in order to evaluate customer needs when working out what staff losses were proposed at this station. We must consider a major point here as this station is an interchange thus seeing many customers using the station to cross over platforms in order to change trains. This is a large amount of people and would not have been taken into account during this analysis. Also when customers are asked to change here for the branch line during delays we end up with a platform full of already irate customers that have not been accounted for, as they have not used any gate line. The point is that evaluating customer traffic with the current method is only painting part of the picture.

Alperton

We are very surprised that this station is taking such a loss on station staff considering how busy a place this is. The last time we had a restructure here there were no staff losses at all; surely this proves how needed staff are.

The main problem here is that 80% of local people have very limited English speaking skills and they require attention from our staff with almost every enquiry. Adding to that there are many places of worship here which brings people to this station that are not familiar with the area, these require assistance too.

A new prayer centre was recently built which brings an average of 1000 people per week and some of these customers are visiting for the first time. This structure attracts many non English speaking sight seers, many of them pass through the station.

There is currently a construction site near by and when completed this area will be residential flats holding a further 400-500 dwellings which will add further to business at this station.

A number of schools are located nearby. Almost every day there are large groups of young children going on school trips; these require extra help from staff members here.

Many customers indicate that they feel quite vulnerable travelling at night in this area as it can be quite alive during the dark hours with youths hanging around. EIRF’s are attached.

The same problem for no time for servicing ticket machines and preparing for cash collections has arisen according to the new proposed rosters.

How are we expected to assist with help points when there is no one around to answer them, or customer updates which need to be broadcasted regularly and within the real time information realm.

Boston Manor

We are losing two staff at Boston Manor leaving a station with points with one person most of the time. This will have an impact on customer service.

Again there is no room on the schematics for POM servicing and floating, help point assistance or preparing for cash collections.

As well as the two sets of points at Boston Manor, we also have two schools nearby. Children travel during the afternoon as well as the morning peak. Some customers speak little or no English.

We have a signal telephone located on the eastbound platform. When this rings we have to run to it take the message then go back to the SS office to contact the signal operator then back to the signal phone to relay messages, this is both very time consuming and would not allow for us to assist customers. This phone is connected to all the signals in the Northfields area and rings on a regular basis.

Ealing Common

Having spoken to local staff these are our findings for this station which will have a major impact on both customer service and health & safety if they are to lose staff.

Ealing Common is an important station for Customers who are in need of travel warrants or new deal registrations due to a large Job Centre nearby.

Many people come to this station with failed Oyster Cards that can not be sorted anywhere near by, Ealing Broadway is a National rail station and many customers are diverted from there when it comes to sorting out oyster card problems.

There are 2 large hotels nearby which makes the station very busy for Group Tickets and the giving of local information and assistance with journey planning, particularly at weekends.

Ealing Common has points and is an open station. On the track side of things, it has many problems with track side fires and smouldering (more than it’s fair share) there are also a number of detrainments here with District Line trains being put into the local depot.

There have been occasions where staff have aided drivers to pilot trains into the depot for various reasons.

We find that according to the schematics given here that there seems to be no room for the staff who will be working alone for most of the time, to be able to float and service ticket machines which will now be busier than ever due to lack of ticket staff. When it comes to cash banking and security collections there also seems to be no time for that on this new proposed roster.

There is also a problem when it comes to station supervisors station checks as according to the new drafts, he or she is supposed to be working in the booking hall at all times giving no time for this safety check.

There are three police stations near by which brings a lot of staff from there wanting to travel through without being able to open the automatic gates themselves.

Northfields

Ticket office loss 75%. From 107 hours per week to 24 hours.

We have a large quantity of EIRF’s for this station where you can see that all staff has needed to be involved, under the new roster these problems could not have been dealt with efficiency. We fear that the outcomes may not have been so successful. As you can read train services would have been much more severely disrupted.

This station’s local school finds it necessary to have school staff on the station to monitor the safety of pupils leaving school as there are vast amount of people on the platform during 15.15 hrs until 16.15. Under the new roster there is going to be one member of LU staff??? With the Station supervisor being alone for so many hours these circumstances are clearly not manageable as customer service alone is undermined. Safety is to us very compromised.

Just when does a SAMF get the chance to do the ESAF? There seems to be no time at all allocated for this need.

Incidents of service disruption find many trains terminating at this station where many customers are either worried or late. We must remember that many customers are preparing to fly and use staff recourses for information. This is a point’s station, a reversing station and we have a local depot, plus section switches; as you can see from our evidence, related problems arise far more than rarely.

During the time of a cash collection, the ticket office is expected to be open. We cannot accept the ticket sellers removing themselves from the window to carry out the banking; after all we hardly have the window open as it is.

On the whole we have help points at this station and it is not practicable for the Supervisor to be away from the office they are designated to for another prolonged period.

The BNS seems to allow for the sales of tickets only What about failed cards?
Unresolved journeys and any other functions that cannot be done from POMS?

Another point for Northfields. We have a signal telephone located in the side passageway. When this rings we have to run to it take the message then go back to the SS office to contact the signal operator then back to the signal phone to relay messages, this is both very time consuming and would not allow for us to assist customers. This phone is connected to all the signals in the Northfields area and rings on a regular basis.

The supervisor’s office is not in the booking office like most of our stations, so when it comes to making customer announcements, updating real time information, answering help points and meeting contactors etc we cannot have a supervisor being away from this room for periods of time. This has an impact on how long a supervisor can spend in the booking office which has not really been addressed on these new proposals

Park Royal

There is a large leisure complex near this station where evening custom is much higher and diverse. We have had issues with crime in the past which has lowered thanks to the station being manned of late (the rostered part time duty was beginning to get covered) and the assistance of the BTP. We feel that the loss of this duty will bring that bad behaviour back to this station.

Again there is no room on the schematics for POM servicing and floating, help point assistance or preparing for cash collections.

South Ealing

Ticket office loss 73%. From 105 hours per week to 30 hours.

This station’s local school finds it necessary to have our staff on the station to monitor the safety of pupils leaving school as there is a vast amount of young children on the platform from 15.15hrs until 16.15hrs. Under the new roster there is going to be one member of LU staff??? With the Station supervisor being alone for so many hours these circumstances are clearly not manageable as customer service alone is undermined. Safety is to us very compromised.

Just when does a SAMF get the chance to do the ESAF? There seems to be no time at all allocated for this need. This is one of our busiest stations for ticket selling and oyster administration needing at the moment three full time ticket staff.

During the time of a cash collection, the ticket office is expected to be open. We cannot accept the ticket sellers removing themselves from the window to carry out the banking; after all we hardly have the window open as it is.

On the whole we have help points at this station and it is not practicable for the Supervisor to be away from the office they are designated to for another prolonged period.

The BNS seems to allow for the sales of tickets only What about failed cards?
Unresolved journeys and any other functions that cannot be done from POMS?

South Harrow

South Harrow is a “multi points” station. Station Supervisors are called to them on many occasions when they fail.

Some trains are timetabled to reverse here, in addition, when there are problems with the service and particularly during planned engineering works at weekends, trains terminate at this station. This requires staff to help detrain. This is not just a matter of getting customers off the trains swiftly in order to maintain a regular train service but many people have questions that need answering when they fall short of their complete journey.

The Help points here are used quite regularly in both emergency and for customer information which, under the new proposed schematics will not be answered.

For quite some time now we have had problems with Nosing Stones popping up on the platforms which require staff to be present in order to maintain our safety record and keep customers from accidents. Many times group reserves have had to be deployed to the platforms for this purpose, other times it has been necessary to take staff from other stations in order to keep the station open. (This will be harder to maintain when we lose group reserve staff too)

The BTP and the MET police are regularly called to South Harrow as there is a problem there with local people particularly youths who hang around this place making a lone working SS vulnerable at times.

This area holds many people who have limited or nonexistent English; this means they require more attention when they have problems to any degree. These valuable customers will be going without the information or assistance they need, which does require staff to aid them on their way.

Again we find there is no time for banking on the draft roster and no time for any servicing of the ticket machines which will be even busier should we lose staff at this station.

We have a bus station next door too which does get very busy so we get many onward journey enquiries.

Below is a list of occasions where track problems have arisen just to give an idea of how much pressure will be placed on a person working alone.

1) 05 July ----0645-- met suspended north of Wembley park
2) 06 July----1250—signal failure at north Ealing
3) 08 July 19 10---pic suspended Acton to Uxbridge
4) 10 July Met suspended Wembley park to Aldgate all day planned works
5) 11 July met eng works all day
6) 11 July 1544 SPAD at Rayners lane
7) 13 July 0630 Defective train
8) 14 July 1109 defective train
9) 15 July 1310 pic suspended Hammersmith to Hyde Park
10) 15 July SPAD at Acton
11) 16 July 1310 SPAd at Rayners Lane
12) 16 July 0936 met suspended Northwick park to Preston
13) 17 July 0730 defective train at South Harrow
14) 17 July 1728 PIOt at barons court
15) 18 July 0718 SPAD at Acton Town
16) 20 July 1355 SPAD at Arnos Grove
17) 20 July 1655 SPAd at Earls court
18) 20 July 1905 SPAD at Hatton Cross
19) 20July 1953 SPAD at Wembley park
20) 22 July 1755 SPAD at Rayners Lane
21) 22 July 0926 Met Suspended Wembley park to Aldgate
22) 23 July 1019 defective train
23) 23 July 1801 Pic suspended Oakwood Cockfosters
24) 26 July 0634 points failure at Rayners lane , trains reversing at South Harrow
25) 26 July 1252 defective train at South Harrow
26) 27 July 0700 defective platform
27) 27 July 1041 points failure at Rayners Lane, trains reversing at South Harrow

Sudbury Town

This station is losing weekend staff leaving only one member for the duration of that period to maintain all that is expected of them.

There is no time to service or float the POMS according to the schematics

It is an unusual station in that we have two gate lines which require 2 minutes to attend any problem that arises.

For many years now managers have wanted all gates to be closed at all times and remotely monitored from the Booking Office. The argument was that staff could release the gates from the Booking Office if someone got caught in them as they could see on the monitors what was happening there. Now according to the new schematics there will be no one in that position (SS on gate line). This is a health and safety issue. There will basically be no one to be able to plunge the gates on the West Bound within the time frame set down by the company.

Again, no is time given for POM service and no detail given for lone working staff to answer any of the help points there.

We are all aware, and it has been stated by management, that it is the non commuter that needs most help. Whilst a lot of these non commuters travel Monday to Friday after 09.30hrs, a lot more of them travel at weekends, especially with their families. These are the people who need more help. Without another member of staff here at Sudbury Town the lone supervisor will be hard pushed to help them all.

We are based in a very large residential community, and at weekends we have a lot of family’s travelling, using the underground. A lot of our local community do not use English as their first language, and some only have a very basic few words. These customers take more of our time in communicating. Our local community also have friends and family visiting from abroad. Again, time consuming communication.

Let’s not forget that at weekends there is a lot of engineering works. We all know the challenges we face with constant, and varying, changes. It is often more difficult, and again, more time consuming to make yourself understood with customers who do not use the network regularly.

We agree with one of our colleagues who said that someone has only looked at statistics, and statistics can be manipulated. There has been no consideration of the specific problems that can, and often do.
I think you can agree that there is argument here for a second member of staff at Sudbury Town at the weekends, maybe not always in the ticket office, but certainly to work partly in the ticket office and partly on the gate line. Our customers would feel the benefit, and this would increase staff morale. This would also mean that each staff member could benefit from a well deserved and uninterrupted meal relief!