Last night’s heavy snowfall (at least by British standards) has predictably caused the usual commuter chaos today.
Large sections of the rail network have shutdown completely, London buses, trains and even the tube have largely ground to a halt and the roads are, by all accounts jam-packed.
And all for less than 6 inches of snow.
Why is that?
OK, so Britain does have one of the busier commuter networks in Western Europe. In fact, I believe Clapham Junction is officially the busiest station (by train numbers) in both Britain and Europe. But isn’t that all the more reason to have effective contingency plans for unusual little weather patches like this?
And likewise, Transport for London, the quango that oversees and manages large portions of London’s transport infrastructure seems equally unable to cope, despite it’s £40 billion budget. How can they not have some kind of contingency fund / plan for these circumstances?
And of course, thanks to the Whitehall worms, we have already used up what little spare capacity on the road network that we had left, so that’s the roads buggered.
Do other countries in western Europe suffer from the same level of commuter chaos after a 6-inch snow flurry? The only story I could find in a quick Google search about traffic chaos in Europe caused by bad weather is a BBC article from 2004 and included at least one photo of cars in a 2 foot bank of snow. Apparently it’s a long time since the rest of Europe’s transport infrastructure ground to a halt from such a relatively minor weather event.
So, the lack of any spare transport infrastructure capacity, contingency planning and foresight all appear to be partial culprits in our lineup of usual inefficiency suspects. And then of course we need to take one more factor into account.
The average government “worker” is a terminally lazy bastard who will skive off at the earliest opportunity, for as long as (s)he can get away with it.
…and suddenly, it all makes a lot more sense!
Now available:Bramshill Feb 2009 – Photo Gallery
+16
