Who runs transit in your city? In many places, this is a complicated answer that involves a mix of different levels of government, transit agencies, and departments of transportation. In London, the answer is slightly more straight-forward. Leon Daniels is former Managing Director, Surface Transport at Transport for London (TfL). In this episode, Leon tells the story of what happened after the London government took responsibility for its transportation program in 2000 back from the central government. This maneuver resulted in many aspects of transportation such as taxicab regulation and bus service planning to be brought under one roof. Since that reorganization, Londoners have benefitted from increased frequency and improved service on public transit routes. In turn, TfL has also been rewarded with historic shares of transit mode share over the years. Finally, Leon shares some lessons from his experience at TfL as US transit agencies like New York’s MTA undergo their own reorganizations.
Who runs transit in your city? In many places, this is a complicated answer that involves a mix of different levels of government, transit agencies, and departments of transportation. In London, the answer is slightly more straight-forward. Leon Daniels is former Managing Director, Surface Transport at Transport for London (TfL). In this episode, Leon tells the story of what happened after the London government took responsibility for its transportation program in 2000 back from the central government. This maneuver resulted in many aspects of transportation such as taxicab regulation and bus service planning to be brought under one roof. Since that reorganization, Londoners have benefitted from increased frequency and improved service on public transit routes. In turn, TfL has also been rewarded with historic shares of transit mode share over the years. Finally, Leon shares some lessons from his experience at TfL as US transit agencies like New York’s MTA undergo their own reorganizations.
“Cities are full of people who like to complain about they currently have, but don’t want the disruption about anything that they might have instead. And you just have to keep plugging away…and do what you think is right.” - Leon Daniels
Disclaimer: Political views raised by guests on the podcast do not reflect the views of TransitCenter.
You can read more about the trajectory of London and New York City transit for the past couple of decades here.
Click here to learn more about the recent TransitCenter event that Leon spoke at.
Music: “Comma” - Blue Dot Sessions
Hosted by Kapish Singla
Produced by TransitCenter
Please note that transcripts are generated by a combination of automated speech recognition software and human transcribers. There may be errors in the text.
Kapish: [00:00:00] From TransitCenter, this is High Frequency. I'm Kapish Singla. Who is responsible for your city's public transit system? In many places, this can be a complicated answer that involves some mix of transit agencies, local government, a Department of Transportation and so on. In London, the answer is a little bit more straightforward. Since 2000, there's been a clear line of accountability that goes up to the mayor. And in those past two decades the system has largely benefited--service and frequency have improved. And as a result, the system is seeing historic ridership numbers. I spoke with Leon Daniels, Former Managing Director, Surface Transport at Transport for London, to learn a bit more about the evolution of London transit. [00:00:48]
Kapish: [00:00:51] So Leon, Transport for London was created in 2000. This now meant it was under the purview of Mayor Ken Livingstone. Can you tell me what changes were being made in this moment? [00:01:02]
Leon: [00:01:04] It's really interesting, Kapish, because neither local government or central government really wanted transport in London. So they were throwing it backwards and forwards. Then it came back to London from 2000 with the new London mayor. And that's situation we have now 17, 18 years later, operations in London--Transport for London--which is a much bigger organization than the old London Transport was, because it brings in everything, it brings in the streets, brings in the taxis, brings in boats, bikes, walking. So it's a much bigger organization than it was. So what happened in 2000 was loads of smaller agencies like the Public Carriage office for the black taxis, which was run by the Metropolitan Police and so on, came together inside Transport for London. And for the first few years, they were just lots of organizations, pretty well like a commonwealth in common ownership. [00:01:58]
Kapish: [00:01:59] And Leon, what was the reason to bring together these separate departments that aren't normally thought of as transportation related into one umbrella? [00:02:07]
Leon: [00:02:08] While there was in the late 1990s, a big push for more localization. So less central government, more local government. So it was about giving the local people more say in the way in which their transport was organised. So local, so it was accountable through the London mayor. London mayors are elected by London voters. And it was about bringing together all the services that people use--whether they are walking in the streets, whether they're riding on the tube, whether they're getting on the bus or cycling, bringing them all together in one agency. And the reason to bring together one agency was really because all these different modes of transport have a trade-off. So you can be really very keen on promoting the bus service, but again, that comes at a price for the ordinary traffic. So the idea of bringing it together was to make sure that through the elected mayor, through the Transport for London Board, and through the organization itself, there was one place to deal with the relative priorities of each of them. [00:03:07]
Kapish: [00:03:09] And while that internal restructuring was happening at Transport for London, how did that look like for the bus rider or the pedestrian or the cyclists on London streets? [00:03:18]
Leon: [00:03:20] So what people saw in London was they saw a positive shift away from car-based motoring towards public transport. Considerable increase in the bus service. So in terms of bus passengers, six and a half million people a day, that's more than any time since 1958. So a huge increase in bus services, not just in terms of the routes, but in terms of frequencies, in terms of the days of operation. Now, some 20 to 25 percent of the services run 24 hours a day as well. [00:03:51]
Kapish: [00:03:52] It sounded like it was a success in the sense that people are making the shift away from cars. What would you say the public debate was? I mean, clearly, there was a hunger that was being filled. But was the mayor responding to the constituents of London or was this something that was really driven by a long-term vision? [00:04:10]
Leon: [00:04:11] For the context of this, London has had three mayors. In the first eight years--Ken Livingstone, who was from Labour from 2008 to 2016. Boris Johnson, who is now the Prime Minister for the Conservatives. And since 2016, Sadiq Khan for Labour. Boris Johnson was elected by the people of London on a manifesto to improve cycling. He did improve cycling. Ken Livingstone was elected on a promise of introducing congestion charge and he did introduce congestion charge. I know this is a difficult concept: politicians carrying out their promises, but in both of those cases, they both carried out the very thing they said they would introduce. [00:04:48]
Kapish: [00:04:50] Where does your own biography in transit intersect with these changes that are happening in the early 2000s? [00:04:55]
Leon: [00:04:57] I joined Transport for London in 2011. Before that, I was Commercial Director at FirstGroup. So I was a bidder for bus route contracts in London. So London Transport as was and TFL as it became, was the agency where I was bidding for work and I might still have been at FirstGroup if the chance to come to TFL to take that particular job--Managing Director, Surface Transport--which is everything apart from the tube...in the year before the Olympic Games. And that was too attractive to turn down. So you bet I went. And then, of course, after the Olympic Games, we were finished patting ourselves on the back for a job well done. Then we got stuck into London's other issues: safety, congestion and an ever-increasingly tight financial budget. So that's how we got ourselves into successive reorganizations. [00:05:42]
Kapish: [00:05:44] When you're talking about a reorganization that happened under your tenure after the 2012 Olympics, can you tell me what changes were being made? [00:05:52]
Leon: [00:05:53] Somebody ought to write a book on the science of reorganizations. So in the period around and after the Olympics, things would have been alright if the financial situation hadn't gone further. So we had to a new reorganization called "Transformation." And what "Transformation" did is it really started to eat into the organization. So if I can characterize the Transformation project, we sort of hollowed out the operating businesses until there was nothing left in them apart from operating. And anything that might have a wider application like planning was put together. So so for the moment, bus service planning is inside central planning. There was a time when there was underground planning, there was bus planning and taxi planning and so on. So those are now altogether. I think my view is now, that, of course, the organization has to organize itself most efficient and economic way. But there are some examples of when you centralize these things that they become so detached from reality that the outcome isn't really what you wanted. So looks beautiful in the organization chart and it makes good sense, but it isn't always ideal. [00:07:07]
[00:07:09] I've got a cracking good example if you'd like it. It just it's a small and almost silly example, but it's perfect. Inside the buses organization was a small little team that dealt with bus driver toilets because the renderers had to make sure that there were toilets for bus drivers at least at one end of the route, if not two. And that was by providing facility, by arranging for facilities to exist in the properties and building them ourselves in our bus stations and so on. And that job for bus driver toilets was done by buses because it was very important for buses because of those toilets weren't there, then the drivers wouldn't work on the routes and then the services wouldn't run...and it's material to the operation of the bus service. In the reorganization, because it's a piece of infrastructure--it got moved to the asset management department, which makes perfect sense. It's an asset. And there are people in the asset management department who know about assets. You know, they know how to build things and how to get to plug them in. They know how to get consent for them. But the trouble is, in asset management, all the really brilliant asset management people are building roads or flyovers or bridges or tunnels or exciting sexy projects. And only the useless people are doing bus driver toilets because it's not a very exciting job inside asset management. So the whole output fell over because it was a small department in a big piece of the organization. So there was a case where it moved from a sponsoring department done well. Then, organizationally, moved into the center and immediately failed to deliver. And I think there's a very interesting lesson in that. [00:08:50]
Kapish: [00:08:51] And finally Leon, New York's MTA, is also in the midst of a reorganization. Having gone through this process in London, are there lessons learned that you think can be applied to the New York case? [00:09:01]
Leon: [00:09:03] The things you need for sure... is you need strong political leadership--one that rock solid behind you. Secondly, you need the best technical team that you can have to make sure that whatever it is you're designing and building and so on is exactly right and of good quality and so on. You have to be brave. You have to be absolutely brave. Digging up the streets of your city in order to replace one mode of transport with another--whether that's putting down rails and putting up wires or whether it's providing cycle lanes or whatever requires bravery because cities are full of people who like to complain about what they currently have, but don't want the disruption about anything that they might have instead. And you just have to keep plugging away at that and not in any way be deflected. Because if all we do is get deflected, then we'll never, never create anything. Of course, consult with people. Of course, have the debate, but at the end of the day, do what you think is right, because some of the first people who were our chief critics in London in the period, in my period, in 2011 - 2017 would now look back and say that some of those things that they opposed turned out to be good. [00:10:14]
This conversation is part of the event's program at TransitCenter, a foundation that works to improve transit in cities across the US. For more information, visit transitcenter.org.