Integrated Transport System

Back in 1997, John Prescott said that 'Britain would have an Integrated Transport System'. Of course, as with much of what Prescott said it was pure hot air. Sadly, nearly 12 years on, we are paying the price of those empty words and lack of action.

The CBI today says that our transport network is 'unreliable, congested and is undermining our competitiveness'. It echoes what most of us in business have felt for some time - the word they have missed off is 'expensive'. Remarkably, they rated train travel as satisfactory in terms of reliability and is considered to be improving. Clearly they have been using very different trains to most commuters.

Trains, Planes & Automobiles

Trains are a running joke in this country. While rolling stock is slowly being updated on the lucrative franchises handed out, the handling of rush hour remains appalling. If you commute into London then you will know what I am talking about. Fast trains at rush hour are the most expensive tickets on the network and you are subjected to densely packed carriages and no seat for the journey, made almost unbearable in Summer due to lack of ventilation. Nowadays, my wife and I will travel by car together as affording two tickets at such excessive cost each day is just ridiculous and with £9 for parking and £8 for congestion charge and around £10 for diesel it makes economic sense.

Of course, the answer that the Mayor and PM will have is to raise the price of the congestion charge or find some other tax to attempt to penalise you into taking the packed trains - or as Ken Livingston was planning, to actually charge a congestion charge for using the trains in rush hour. This stupid and illogical way of trying to manipulate behaviour comes from the long, historic belief of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman lineages that if you tax someone then they won't do it.

The idiot thing is that no one takes a rush hour train or car journey by choice. They do it because that's what business and working demands. Most people in this country have set hours of work and while flexi-hours are a great innovation, over 90% of businesses cannot afford such luxury for its employees simply because their customers demand service within normal business working hours and beyond. In order to be successful in business, you need to be delivering your products and services within working hours. And that means that any more costs heaped onto getting staff to work within those normal hours will just make the business less competitive.

The Burden of Transport

In my business, my biggest expense lines outside of payroll is travel. Taking out accommodation costs which I try to avoid if I can, a quick analysis reveals it is cheaper to use a car for internal travel in the UK than trains with the exception of the Underground in London. A cursory glance will tell you mile for mile it is cheaper to use planes than cars or trains. Yet a bus and a train has to be cheaper than a plane to buy, maintain and run, particularly with all the ancillary costs.

Most people commuting to their office cannot recharge that to their employer and so bear the cost themselves, so the hidden cost of transport in business is huge. This will eventually manifest itself in wages which need to remain competitive yet still provide enough to cover the employees' transport back and fore from work. If you look at the cost of specifically trains and buses over the last 11 years it is easy to see that their cost has risen well out of proportion with wage increases.

It is costing us more to work than ever before thanks to transport costs.

The State of The Union

Britain is not some backward nation on its uppers - well not yet anyway. In that last 11 years, we were told repeatedly that we had a super economy and we were well off as a nation. Of course that has proved to be complete rubbish but it does make you wonder why on earth we have not ploughed enough money into getting our transport system in line with the modern age. Ministers would tell you that it is because of lack of previous investment and it's a case of catch up. Well, that's no excuse to exacerbate the problem on their watch. Now we are talking mega-numbers, not quite in line with bank bail outs, naturally, in order to put it right.

And here is the rub. This has been a Government of missed opportunity which is a phrase I have used before. The real shame is that when a crisis came hundreds of billions of pounds were taken without a cursory thought as to how they would be used or spent by the people they gave it to just as a knee jerk reaction to the failing banking system. Heaven knows, if such money was available then, why were we not spending it on our future like transport infrastructure - and if it could have so easily have been conjured up, why did we not use it before?

Of course, tax is at the heart of the matter and we shall find out in years to come just how much it has cost to save the skins of a few bankers and keep a bunch of bank businesses many of which deserved to fail. What we will count the cost of at the same time is how much new infrastructure, new hospitals, schools and much more we could have spent our hard earned money on while we pay off the 'expense tabs' of the elite bankers, the very same people who now sit like vultures on the PM's shoulders telling him how much money he needs to spend to dig himself out of the mess he got us into.

You can be sure of one thing, not one of them will be telling him to hold back the cash for banks and spend it on transport or any other worthy cause. That does not pay a banker's wages or bonus - and that is the priority of this Government, make no mistake. This period of history will be the single biggest missed opportunity in Britain's economic history - and we will remain uncompetitive for years because of it.

Snow Joke

Phew, Britain sweats! Snow has fallen over much of Britain today, with as much as 15cm predicted in parts of the South East. So get your cameras primed for Christmas Card pictures and gird your loins for a really annoying day of disrupted travel.

Grit Your Teeth

I have already been on the BBC website and while the scene outside my window is lovely, I know I have about an hour's digging to do to get my car out to be able to drive to the station. Having great foresight I did not buy any grit from the Garden Centre as my wife had advised as I am very sceptic of weather reports and it looked cold but fine yesterday afternoon. There was pathetic effort at snow last night so I felt smug that any preparations for snow would have been wasted effort.

However, I have been out and walked up our access road to the road that links us to the outside world and sure enough the Council Gritters had exactly the same attitude as me. The road is covered with about 6cm of snow, no salt has been laid down beforehand and the walking conditions, let alone driving, are treacherous.

Great start to the day.

Digging Myself Out of Trouble

So I have been frantically emailing my appointments today to give them due warning that plans may get a little disrupted due to lack of planning. Naturally, I have blamed this on Council workers sitting in front of the TV doing nothing all day yesterday and being totally inadequately prepared for the snow. Typical Britain - a couple of snowflakes and the whole country grinds to a halt; Gatwick is shut and trains will of course be bypassing stations as they will not be able to stop on icy tracks, so better not take them out. That or there are 'Different kinds of leaves' stopping the trains getting through.

Yes, I know I am part of the problem - I will have to dig my car out and gingerly negotiate the minor roads but it is an established fact that we as a country, with all our sophisticated equipment for predicting weather, seem incapable of acting upon the information and so diminishing the effects of slightly unusual weather.

It is, of course, about the fourth or fifth time in a matter of months that we have had a good smattering of snow BUT this time it has struck on a Monday morning. Expect mayhem on the roads and various travel services.

Coping Methods

I shan't insult our intelligence by saying the obvious - but I will. The fact is that you go to any other country in Europe and about ten feet of snow poses about as much of a challenge as an England cricket team playing Australia.

Ah well, it's time to brave the day. Good luck everyone. Wrap up warm - if you are travelling far, make sure you take a look at the road reports, stick a coat and torch in the boot, have a bottle of water and some dry biscuits with you, a shovel, a team of Huskies, a tent, and a blow up Sir Ranulph Fiennes to lead you danger just in case.

'Screw it - just do it!'

Having just had a fairly poor value-for-money experience on a Virgin Train going back and fore to Preston the other day, I picked up the copy of Richard Branson's Quick Read booklet of the title above to learn the secrets of running a truly over-priced rail franchise.

It was enlightening and I think everyone should 'Screw it - just do it!' and start their own train franchises as it has made 'Ricky' wealthy enough to buy not just one but two Caribbean Islands, don't you know.

The Virgin Engine

There is no doubt that spread over 200 companies and employing more then 40,000 people, the fresh faced, toothsome lad who started flogging advertising in his 'Student' magazine while still at school, has built up his business with a well-versed formula. And there are things to be learnt from such a booklet.

I draw the line at such pithy remarks from self-help gurus who tell you everything is possible, you just have to apply yourself. That is simply not true, as many are not born into a world of advantages - for many millions, a goal is to survive the day, to get their next mouthful of clean water or food.

Self-help books in the Third World are useful only for mopping up dysentery.

However, Ricky Branson has built a Virgin brand which does hold true to the original values. If you buy a Virgin product you can expect the slight maverick instinct, the understated emphasis on fun or entertainment and in general an expectation of value for money pervades. I wonder if Virgin Funerals could be a new business opportunity.

To some extent, I have felt that Virgin brands like Virgin Atlantic cocked a snook at the Big Guys like BA and rather than take them on as a cheap alternative, the focus was on providing competitive products, with a bit of flair and an eye to woo customers. They invented the concept of 'Premium Economy', the idea of having some more comfort and leg room but not over-paying for some plank of a bed and warm meals with semi-expensive wines. Upper Class struck at BA First Class yet at a Business Class fare, and together with in-flight massages, there was a real feeling of going that extra yard. In the spirit of fun, I was always surprised that membership of the 'Mile High Club' was not included.

We could go through business by business but each one took a swipe at the incumbents and gave a little extra zip that engendered great loyalty, even down to alternatives cans of cola although I really did not like the Virgin chewing gum found in toilets - dumb idea and tasted foul but blew great bubbles.

What I like about Richard Branson is that he was not experienced in any of the businesses he started beforehand. He was not a pilot nor an experienced manager of an airline, he never manufactured soft drinks, he never ran a bank or an entertainment company yet he started those businesses. His ethos of 'Screw it - just do it!' is a very real part of his being.

It's a lesson for all those companies out there who demand the next employee to have 'direct experience' of the job - you are almost certainly missing out on very capable people who apply business skills on a wider level and entrepreneurial types who can make things happen. But then again, no one ever got fired for just recruiting poorly, they do for not following procedures - another of my pet hates.

So What Happened To Virgin Trains?

The Virgin Train experience starts out nicely. There are always nice people at ticket counters, everyone looks smart in their tailored Virgin suits and coats, the trains themselves are modern, smart and fast. It looks and feels great. But then you you buy a ticket. You can feel the credit card crunch each time as you get nothing cheaply on Virgin Trains. Whether Standard Class or First, expect a severe lashing.

The onboard environment is good particularly in First Class - nice seats, power to laptops, lights for reading. Then comes the food. There was a time when Virgin travel franchises went to famous chefs for advice - well not many make good sandwiches by the looks of it. The ticket prices remain pricey after peak time but the food and drinks served are actually cold sandwiches and are very bad. I can't remember the last time I travelled with them and hot food was served, the rules are so daft - and that really hammers the 'Value For Money' experience you expect. On top of that, I cannot remember the last time the train left and arrived on time. Granted the fiasco at Milton Keynes the other night was beyond Virgin's control but I had asked a nice Lady at the Virgin Ticket Counter in Preston if I could travel on the earlier train and having already paid £271 for a return ticket, I was told to get the earlier train back would be a further £130! The train was virtually empty.

The Point of All This

Where the Virgin Brand has excelled is by providing the almost maverick alternative to the status quo products and services that epitomises what Branson himself modestly calls 'The Rebel Billionaire', his TV program (what, you don't have one of your own?). We buy because we too are two-fingering BA and the large airlines who have had to respond accordingly with better service and lower cost flights and it has revolutionised Trans-Atlantic travel, make no mistake.

BUT, when it comes to running a franchise, unopposed, Virgin has slipped into jobsworth mode. They can afford to charge what they like, make as much money as they like, provide whatever level of service they like, charge stupid money for transferring one train to the next - but wrap it all up in the Virgin livery and we think it's the same as before.

It isn't. When Virgin are unopposed and providing a service for which there is no real competitor, they are just as poor as the rest.

Competition Maketh The Man

So what Ricky's book did say is that Virgin is a maverick, fun-loving business that takes old and crusty services and products and provides an alternative which gives extra often for less with a bit of an air of fun thrown in when in competition with that old product or service, and it's good at that. But what it did NOT say was when it comes down to cashing in on a monopoly winner like a Rail Franchise, it operates like an old, crusty service provider itself.

It's a bit harsh as it started out so well with lovely, fast-rolling trains, but sometimes those who believe every word of their own bull need a short sharp reminder that not every aspect of their business is as smiley, shiny and maverick as they think.

I could start on Bill Gates next on this subject but maybe another time.