How TfL is using the iPad to revolutionise the Tube

If you live in London, you might have noticed the dozens of blue hoardings covering various building sites. That’s Crossrail, the new east-west rail link spanning the capital. When the new line starts operations in 2018 (under the new name of the Queen Elizabeth line), the London Underground will have expanded once again. But this isn’t the only part of the Tube that is changing, massively.

What’s most interesting is how Transport for London (TfL) is improving its processes using digital tools. Under the new regime, staff will be issued with iPad minis loaded with custom apps, some details of which I can reveal for the first time below. So integral are these new apps to TfL’s new processes that staff uniforms have even been redesigned to include a special pocket that can hold an iPad.

I’d love to say I obtained the screenshots and details within this piece from a shadowy secret source at TfL, who handed me the data in a brown envelope late at night in an underground car park, but I just submitted a Freedom of Information Request, and TfL kindly provided what I asked for. That’s why some of the images are low resolution, strangely stretched or partially censored – they came from PDFs created with no respect for aspect ratios.

So let’s take a look at the apps.

Station log book

Traditionally, the station log book was a paper record of anything “noteworthy” that happened at Tube stations, with records kept so that incident details could be shared with staff on other shifts. For example, if you lose your phone while sitting on the platforms at Oxford Circus, it’ll get recorded in the log book.

The log book is now being replaced with an app that essentially recreates the experience, but digitally. Staff can add items to the log, select a relevant category and add free-form notes to each item. Using the iPad’s camera, they can even attach a photo if need be. This data is searchable, and other staff can leave notes on each item so that everyone can see what the status is. Items can be tagged as “restricted”, only visible to supervisors or people of a higher rank – which is good for privacy.

At the end of the shift, all the staff member needs to do is hit the “handover” button and the person picking up after them will immediately have access to everything they need to know. Helpfully, you can also export the logs as PDFs so that the data can be shared with less tech-savvy outsiders. Smartly, too, staff have to pick the reason they are exporting the data from a dropdown menu – again, as another safeguard on privacy.

Ticket monitoring

Although there will no longer be TfL staff sitting in ticket offices, all stations will still be staffed – and we can expect to see employees continuing to patrol the ticket barriers (or gate line, in Tube jargon), as this is where some problems tend to arise.

To help support staff, there’s now an app they can use to monitor both the barriers and the ticket machines, to make sure they’re all functioning correctly – with one screen showing traffic-light-style coloured icons on a map of the station to indicate their status. If there’s a problem, staff can submit an incident report to get a machine fixed.

Not only does this allow all staff to monitor which machines need fixing, but it will even send notifications when a ticket machine is running low on coins. It should also make it less likely that you’ll ever tap your Oyster only to find the gates don’t swing open, because it will no longer rely on passengers reporting problems to get something fixed.

Incident reporting

We’ve all been there. It’s late at night and you’re on the last Tube home, and there’s one guy on the carriage who has decided to shout at someone or get abusive. Sadly, Tube staff can’t just look down at their phone and pretend it isn’t happening – they have to try to stop it.

This new app will undoubtedly be an improvement, as according to TfL’s documents: “There is currently no structured process to provide support to staff who experience anti-social behaviour and abuse.”

The new app is designed to take details of incidents and send the data straight to the relevant department, whether the revenue department if someone is querying a fare, TfL’s internal workplace violence unit, or the British Transport Police.

Staff can categorise incidents so they go to the right place, and are able to mark whether the person causing problems is a repeat offender who is known to the staff. There also appears to be a built-in mechanism for TfL to go back and support staff afterwards if need be, with a “duty of care” box to tick.

The documents also say that when reports are filed that the relevant people will receive the data “nearly live” – suggesting it will make resolving incidents easier and quicker too.

But don’t be surprised if we start seeing statistics about the number of assaults on the Tube increasing by this time next year – TfL expects the number of reports to increase due to the ease of reporting.

Visitors, contractors and evacuation registers

Above: The iPad visitor system (left) and evacuation register (right)

As the Tube network is in a state of constant maintenance, there needs to be a mechanism through which to manage visiting contractors and make sure they have the proper credentials. At the moment this requires a station supervisor to sign in everyone who turns up – but another new app appears to be an attempt to simplify the process.

Curiously, this app is a good illustration of just why going digital can be a headache. Because contractors are still reliant on paper, the official new hi-tech method of saving some of this information is to… um… take a photo of a paper form.

To get around the need to create digital identities for individual contractors, it appears that photographing the sign-in sheet will count as signing in all of the people. Then, to sign them out, a photo must be taken of the lead contractor’s badge, which also contains a QR code. A neat way to get around a potentially tricky technical problem.

The app also includes the evacuation register, so if the station needs to be evacuated, the staff member can go through and check off everyone who gets out. There’s even a timer so they can see how long an evacuation has taken.

TfL’s documentation also talks about how staff will “book on” at the start of a shift, and “book off” at the end (although it may be using a separate app to this one – it’s somewhat unclear). Under the new regime, they’ll be required to sign in and out on the iPad when they’re working, so that their supervisor can see exactly who is available in a given station at any given time. This is particularly important now that managers may be in charge of multiple stations simultaneously. Oh, and potentially bad news for lazy staff, as it will also be keeping track of whether they’re late.

Asset checking

Station staff also have to check whether the station “assets” are working correctly – everything from fire extinguishers to advertising screens. This was previously the job of station supervisors, who would have to check around 110 different assets every time. According to TfL’s documents, this is time-consuming business and eats up a significant amount of supervisor’s time.

Using the new app, asset checks can be performed by all staff, who will be allocated different things to check when they start a shift. Staff can then mark on their iPad whether checks have been completed, and flag any faults with the central system – kicking the maintenance procedures into gear.

The hope is that the new app will reduce the amount of unnecessary duplication, and for the first time there will be a complete “audit trail” of checks. If anything does go wrong, it will be possible to go back through the logs. The documents also imply that the digital system will be able to allocate checks algorithmically based on risk – so something important (like that fire extinguisher) will get more attention than something less so (like a poster advertising a West End musical).

Fault reporting

So what happens when there’s a fault? Currently, it’s up to station supervisors to call one of a vast number of different helplines depending on the nature of the problem, which sounds like a bit of a nightmare.

Using the new fault-reporting app, the process has been streamlined into a modern “ticket”-style system where faults can be logged, with comments and photos attached to help the people who need to fix it identify the problems. Reports will then automatically be sent to the correct authority. If the problem can’t be handled on TfL’s systems, it appears that it will automatically generate an email containing all of the information to send on to contractors and the like.

The app will also enable any staff to report any faults they encounter, rather than have to rely on a supervisor. And apparently all staff will be notified of faults, so everyone at the station will know what is going on (though it’s unclear whether it will be via push notification, or only when staff enter the app). There’s also a “dashboard” in the app, to give staff an at-a-glance view of current faults at each station.

This said, the app won’t be able to do everything – it’s only for “non-critical” faults. If the problem could impact safety or service – say, an escalator stalling or CCTV not working – TfL still tells staff to get straight on the phone rather than wait for someone to respond.

Performance competence system

What’s clear from all of the apps is that they will enable TfL to measure pretty much everything, from how many lightbulbs need replacing (thanks to the faults app), to the number of times every day staff can expect to be swore at (thanks to the incident app). But what about the final piece of the puzzle? How can it measure how well its staff are performing?

For supervisors, there’s a performance competence system that will enable them to assess their underlings’ skills, and have the results visible on a dashboard. Ordinary staff will be able to log on and check their performance, to see what they need to improve and so on. In the documents, TfL says that: “With training and support, the performance and competence system will empower staff to help manage their competence, increase the transparency of assessments and provide more meaningful discussions about how we can help staff understand how we all can deliver that world-class service.”

Good service on all London Underground lines

So what does it all mean? One thing that the London Underground is great at is squeezing every last drop of capacity out of its assets.London sadly lacks China’s ability to dig miles of new tunnels every year (although Crossrail isn’t a bad start), but as London has become more crowded, TfL has done everything from resignalling the tunnels to enable more trains to run on the Tube, to enlarging stations to cope with more passengers. And judging by these documents, these apps appear to be another step towards making the Tube run with ruthless efficiency.

Here’s hoping the rollout doesn’t experience any severe delays, so that we can look forward to continued good service on all London Underground lines.

Lead image by Alessandro, used under Creative Commons license. 

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