Things may have changed somewhat from when Alex Warner agreed to take on the role of chair of the West Midlands Grand Rail Collaboration (GRC), but his priorities very much remain the same.
Boosting train reliability and passenger satisfaction remain at the heart of his priorities. Speaking to railbusinessdaily.com he has outlined plans for improvements at Birmingham New Street, the initiation of Destination West Midlands, and of course the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
He has taken over as chair from the West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, who launched GRC last year in a ground-breaking deal and the first of its kind in the country to drive up standards for rail passengers in the area.
“I have definitely taken over the role at an interesting time, after 28 years of a career of trying to get people to use public transport, we currently find ourselves in a situation in which we are telling them not to,” he said.
“But as the lockdown begins to ease, the challenge will be to get people back on public transport and a key part of that will be to boost train reliability and customer satisfaction.
“The key challenge over the coming weeks will be to ensure the network continues to serve our key workers
“But it is also important we put the preparations in place to give customers the right environment and a great service so that they feel safe and confident to travel again once the lockdown eases. We need to create positive, upbeat messages around travelling by public transport.
“A key to that will be collaboration something that we are doing really well as part of the Grand Rail Collaboration.
“From my own experience in the rail industry, there have been cases in the thankfully more distant past of a less than collegiate approach between different parts of the industry, but that certainly hasn’t been the case during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are in a really good collaborative space and probably the most collegiate I’ve ever seen in the rail industry in the 28 years I’ve been part of it. This has to continue in the future to put us on the right track to recovery.
“I think Sir Peter Hendy and Andrew Haines at the helm of Network Rail are two of the key drivers behind the collaboration. Andrew is hugely experienced in the rail industry and Sir Peter lives and breathes transport – everyone is rallying around them. They have galvanised the whole sector and lead by example”
The GRC brings together five train operating companies, Network Rail, West Midlands Rail Executive (WMRE), the freight sector, Transport Focus and the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education.
Its new chair, Alex, comes to role with nearly three decades of experience in the transport sector, currently Chief Executive at Flash Forward Consulting, where he has presided over a range of consultancy programmes.
He was previously Managing Director, at Royal Mail Specialist Services and is able to draw on his experience in logistics to the benefit of transport .
He said: “They are two really similar set-ups in terms of size and operations and in Royal Mail, they are in the midst of a transformation from a letters business to a very commercially-driven, predominantly parcels based organisation.
“The way they’ve had to reinvent themselves in the face of changing customer and market needs is something that is increasingly facing public transport – no more so than when we exit the CV-19 crisis and customers behavioural patterns will have changed, fairly dramatically.
“Rail reliability and punctuality are the two most important priorities for customers and it always surprises me as an industry, professionals seem to be designated into one of two categories – “operations” or “customer service”.
“I’ve always been thrown into the ‘he’s Mr customer services, ‘pink and fluffy’ – we’ll come to customer service once we’ve sorted the operations out’, type category. ‘You go away and play and make staff be friendly and smile and we’ll do the real stuff of running trains from a to b’. I’ve stumbled across this kind of sentiment over the years and it does bemuse me.
“But actually, the customer service is a big part of the operation. I think this is something they do see in the West Midlands, but historically across parts of the industry, it’s not always been the case, though thankfully much better now.
“It is about getting those working in operations to think about the decisions they are making from a customer perspective. We need to make a judgment when taking operational decisions in terms of customer outcomes – it’s so important when a tough decision needs to be made, about cancelling a train, for instance, to look at what inflicts the least pain on a particular group, taking into account the service that they might have suffered quite a bit recently.
“Reviewing the impact of these decisions is so important too – understanding how it affected different types of customers and what lessons can be learnt for the future. Too often, disruption occurs, decisions are made in isolation and we move onto the next disruption without taking a step-back and analysing how it felt for customers.
“Equally, I think it is also important to make sure that if you are making improvements that you keep customers up to date about why you are doing the work and the benefits it will bring. We need to create a strategic narrative and sense of momentum for customers – if there are prolonged engineering works or a series of disruptions, then we need to inform customers as to why this is happening and what the end rewards will be for them because of their patience – in terms of an upgrade or better railway. Some of the negative stories can be transformed into positives quite easily.
“Reliability and punctuality are really important. The industry and West Midlands is no exception and has experienced challenging timetable re-casts. Lessons are being learned and no one is under any illusions that we need to get these right going forward. If the next timetable change fails, customers are less concerned as to whether the staff are friendly or not – a lovely employee can reduce the negative impact, but ultimately customer satisfaction levels will be determined by whether the timetable worked in the first place.
“In the coming months there will be people coming back onto the trains that haven’t used them for a while. We need to make sure it is a good experience for them and if there are any problems the right contingency plans are in place and customers are given the best information.
“We need the whole ambience to be attractive and a place that is on the front-foot. I look at some of the designs of what a restaurant might look like in the CV-19 space and I think to myself that the whole proposition looks unappealing and just too much hassle. Public transport needs to be mindful of this – we need to provide a product that is safe but also has style and polish and one that exudes positivity.”
But what to the big plans over the course of the year? When Alex was announced as the new chair last month, he spoke of exciting plans to improve customer satisfaction and a focus on stimulating social mobility and the prosperity of the West Midlands and beyond.
He said: “The recovery from Covid-19 will be a priority and a lot of hard work and collaboration is going on through the Covid-19 working group focussing on the operation, and customer experience, which has been really good.
“A challenge in the coming months will be how to get bums on seats once the timetable is ramped up and we’ve got that environment that is safe, nice and pleasant.
“We’d like to be a pivotal voice in initiating some kind of “Destination West Midlands” type campaign, working with the chamber of commerce, tourist attractions, retailers and building on national efforts within the transport sector to drive patronage. This will be around getting more people wanting to travel to the area and to make sure they feel comfortable and safe.
“Other priorities on the agenda include Network Rail’s Birmingham New Street area re-signalling project. We’ve set up a working group looking very much at the impact of this from a customer perspective.
“It is all about collaboration. New Street is quite a constrained environment and quite a complex station. If we are carrying out re-signalling work and it is starting from December, you can just imagine what kind of impact it will have if the plans aren’t robust and effective.
“This is already a network with capacity constraints to the hilt, with high levels of passenger and freight traffic in and around the region, and high numbers of passengers changing trains. It is one of the most fascinatingly complex railway networks in the UK and beyond, but with that comes fragility if the right plans aren’t in place and there isn’t the commensurate level of collaboration between all industry partners.
“Other interesting things we’re looking at is Birmingham New Street from a whole customer experience. I’ve always found it a difficult place to navigate, with its low ceiling, dark and complicated and platforms with As and Bs. We want to do a whole piece of work about shared customer service vision, standards across all the operators
“The work we do could be used as a centre of excellence so everyone will go to New Street as an example of best practice. It could be used to implement similar changes at other stations across the Region and maybe nationally. We also want to create a shared employee experience throughout the West Midlands – better communication of information and support between the various employees at the different operators – a sense that we’re all working to the same objective of creating a great experience for customers travelling in the West Midlands. Railway employees are proud to do the job they are doing – I’d love us to celebrate and build on that pride collectively for the good of the Region.
“We’re doing a lot around customer panels and engaging with not just customers but also non-users, but one other area we’ll be looking into will be multi modal integration.
“A large part of my career has been spent in buses. I can’t understand why bus and rail are so poorly integrated. This is from the connections between bus and train services to signage and information in train stations about bus services and vice versa.”
With many plans and ideas in place, Alex finishes the interview by answering about the impact the GRC will hopefully have had by this time next year.
He said: “There will hopefully be no more COVID and there will be a vaccination. Looking from an industry perspective I hope there will be that collaboration between the operators, but freight will be much higher on the agenda.
“I think we will be in position to be well placed to deal with some of the strategic things effecting the railway in the West Midlands – such as the Commonwealth Games.
“The Birmingham New Street signalling will be going well and we’ll be getting more customers travelling again.
“I’d like to think everyone will be feeling good about public transport and in terms of GRC everyone will be looking forward to the meetings and the many sub working groups we have in place already. I want people to feel excited about making a positive difference for customers.
“GRC has a really important role to play as we are all in it together and working closer together in these difficult times which is a force for good. I can only see success if we all continue to work together.”
