It's rare that transport industry practitioners write full-length books on their trade, especially those with something to say about the Melbourne scene. Books are more likely to come from academics instead. James Murphy's The Making and Unmaking of East-West Link and A Very Public Solution and Transport for Suburbia from the late Dr Paul Mees are examples.
Academics and their students may also present research via papers or at conferences such as ATRF. Other parties that have recently published research or advocacy material on transport include Committee for Melbourne, Climate Council, Infrastructure Victoria and the former Transport and Cities Unit of the Grattan Institute. And historical material may appear from enthusiasts-practitioners via organisations such as state bus and coach societies or the Australian Timetable Association.
DTP bureaucrats, transport operators and to some extent consultants are more constrained in what they can say. So a book appearing from one is a special occasion, often delivering a perspective you won't find elsewhere.
Intended audience
Without Delay is by a rail manager for rail managers. But safety regulators and franchise managers should read it too. Especially those in this state given its pointed comments about them near the end.
Advocates, enthusiasts and those interested in efficient public service delivery more broadly may also benefit. Though beware; you are not its primary audience. Hence Without Delay has jargon, abbreviations but no glossary. Neither is there an index. So it's best read with a highlighter in hand for easier later reference.
The author
Who is Simon Lane? You could call him an international rail trouble-shooter. Brought in when service delivery is poor and there is a desire to do better. Or there's a major event coming when trains absolutely have to run properly. Notable Australian experience includes Melbourne's Met Trains under Minister Alan Brown (1994-1997) and the period leading up to and including the Sydney 2000 Olympics,
Later he was asked by the Victorian Minister for Public Transport to review Melbourne's poor train performance during the hot 2009 summer. After Connex lost the franchise to MTM he became interim Chief Operating Officer in 2010-2011 before Singapore beckoned.
Like many rail managers in Australia, Lane hails from Britain. If you've wondered about that, it's not just our better weather and wages; he explains that Australia and (perhaps surprisingly) Singapore have been suckers when it comes to hiring senior managers who don't meet that country's qualification requirements (p60). That we expect train drivers, signallers and technicians to be qualified, but not senior managers, is one theme of the book.
Importance of statistical analysis
What are some other Without Delay tips? 'Stretch targets', even those thought impossible, are important. Rail managers may know but not understand the network, especially its vulnerabilities and where it can be improved easiest. Timetable people may blame rolling stock people for faults and vice versa.
To get the truth on what to fix first it's essential to use data to ascertain where delays happen and their real causes. You can play along at home with (some) of the former through Track Record's interactive dashboard. Or you can go back through old annual reports (like I did in 2006). Such a statistical approach is essential to identify the lines with the worst performance, with some groups performing better than others. Variability is also important. When improvements from one initiative (eg fixing train doors) become discernible there is less 'noise' in the numbers, making the next problems to fix stand out. That gives useful guidance for the following year's work program.
Attend to common faults
While major network meltdowns (like Oaks Day 2008) get the most publicity, it's the common everyday faults, such as might arise from fragile timetabling, operational sloppiness or unreliable train doors that contribute most to mediocre daily performance. Lane says that too often this is accepted in a culture of 'learned helplessness' that accepts achieving a franchise target as 'good enough'.
This can be exacerbated by a desire (arguably an obligation) for a franchisee to maximise shareholder profits rather than provide the best service it can be - ie risks and delays as low as reasonably practical). It takes two to tango, so this mediocrity can only happen if the network owner/franchise manager (in our case the state government through DTP) is too accepting.
Accountability
Past Melbourne on Transit articles (eg this, this, this and this) have noted the 2003 - 2010 fall, the 2011-2014 rebound and the slow 2015 - 2019 decline in metropolitan rail's operational performance.
Who is at fault? Lane said that all but one of the eighteen ministers he has encountered have been open to his advice (p339). Franchise operators are legally bound (by Australian corporations law) to put their shareholders first (p309). This puts the onus on the contract owner (ie DTP) to uphold asset stewardship and operational performance. Any slackness is quickly noticed and exploited by the operator, who become masters at knowing what they can get away with ('the normalisation of deviance') and in pleading mitigating circumstances.
Noting the post 2015 deterioration, he said that today's contract managers were too tolerant, and those of the late 1990s would have driven better performance such as was actually achieved as per graph below (p311).
Would-be rail managers (whose role should be to build systems that endure after they leave - described as the 'flywheel effect') are encouraged to seek qualifications and avoid what Lane calls the 'amateurish good bloke' theory of management. Reading inquiry investigation reports for air, sea and rail disasters is also essential - these have lessons that apply for reliability as well as safety.
The three cultures
There is a focus is on avoiding 'loss of control' events through reference to a 'three culture model'. The three cultures roughly correspond to 'bad', 'mediocre' and 'good', with the bad one being described as 'denial or professional recklessness'.
Falling in to this category, according to Lane (p218), was the deterioration in Melbourne train performance from 2004 as the then government blamed the private operator before eventually acting (but too late to electorally save itself in 2010). Lane was particularly critical of 'Meeting our Transport Challenges' (wrongly cited as 2007 - it was actually 2006) as its rail projects, including Dandenong's third track, did not boost available train paths. Based on Lane's classification, I would count fare evasion on Melbourne buses as a more recent sustained 'loss of control' event, including some denial as described here.
'Administrative or professional negligence' was the second culture. This is what Lane encountered in 1994 (p229) when starting in Melbourne. The difference between this and the first culture was that shortcomings here were less blatant and needed a skilled person to see. There was also an appetite, though not necessarily the understanding required, to improve. MTM's cessation in performance improvement after the 2012 rebound (and the slow decline after) is also cited here (p230).
Third and best is the 'high performance culture'. Lane says that Met Trains was up to this level by December 1997 (p237) with peak train punctuality close to 95%. Unfortunately there's only a paragraph on this, though other references to this era appear in the book. As the book traces the author's experiences there's significant gaps. For example I'd have liked to have read much more on the 2011-2012 performance revival (which contemporary Melbourne readers and managers will remember better).
Government versus franchising
Given his background, my expectation was that Lane would prefer a privatised franchise model. However his conclusions are based on evidence that shows the state-run rail networks of Perth, Sydney and Brisbane are performing better than Melbourne's franchised model on reliability and customer satisfaction. Although he didn't mention Brisbane's poor patronage performance, poor frequency and (arguably) less efficient staffing practices compared to say Perth.
In relation to franchising, if you are going to do it he suggested the Network Owner (ie DTP) give franchisees more autonomy in how they run a good service, but being firmer on them in performance demands. 'Partnerships', such has become the fashion, have lead to blurring responsibilities, poor accountability and overstaffing. Page 310 says that the pre-franchising Department of Transport (ie circa 1999) had 25 staff compared to 1200 now.
I would like more evidence of like-for-like comparisons before accepting this statement on departmental staffing. This claim is not unlike that from the late Paul Mees who said that the department was grossly overstaffed and said that it could manage with about 30, as he said was the case in Zurich. Plus there were some important transport functions in 1999 that were just not done, eg maintaining bus stop signage and timetables (which had to await Metlink's arrival in 2004 to happen), not to mention timetable data, websites and journey planners.
The second edition had improvements over the first. But if a third edition was to come out then better editing is needed. Might I be so bold to say, by a professional, not an amateur. This is to avoid the current edition's (a) heavy repetition, (b) use of jargon and abbreviations (with no glossary), (c) appearance of some factual errors (including the Goodies skit dog food options), (d) spelling mistakes (including both American and English on the one page), (e) better quality/more readable diagrams and (f) need for more detail in some case studies presented.
Better editing would also return its cost by making Without Delay accessible to a wider audience including advocates, academics, policy analysts, administrators and media. Many such people will not have direct industry experience but may still be influential in advisory or franchise management roles.
Notwithstanding its limitations, which are shared by many (almost) self-published limited-market books, I still recommend Without Delay as an essential read for anyone interested in safe and reliable rail operations. And, if it's any comfort to those struggling, I found the last half an easier read than the first half.
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