No news is good news

No nightmares to report notwithstanding the extraordinary effort and changes that were involved in the Olympic Games.

There has been a huge attempt to minimise normal journeys to create capacity for the Games, its organisers, participants and spectators which has affected every Londoner.   We were all warned to expect serious queues and disruption - a really 'big scare'.   And it worked.   The attempts to manage and reduce demand were, if anything, too successful and travel during the games time was, if anything, less crowded and less disrupted than normal.

Yes there were incidents, such as a major points failure outside Cannon Street which took 24 hours to fix.   But such incidents as there were didn't have the enormously detrimental impact that might have been expected.

There were a number of reasons for this.   First, all the  train operators did a thorough preparation including preventative maintenance.   This reduced the number of minor failures substantially.

Second, there were a lot of staff present.   One afternoon I counted 14 staff on the platforms at Waterloo East with another 10 elsewhere in the station.   At London Bridge I counted the number of staff between the ramp at the end of platform 3 and Borough High Street every morning.   It was never less than 23 and reached as many as 47.

Third, contingency plans had been prepared to a degree not previously known.   And, most importantly, fourth, all were committed to the most comprehensive information campaign ever conceived for transport in London.   Moreover, all the media were prepared for a disaster and were busily looking for one (until team GB started winning gold medals).   In its own way this helped the communications campaign.

The sadness is that this effort is not sustainable.   Preventative maintenance might be possible and shouldn't be too expensive, but the flooding with staff is wholly unaffordable.   Communications might be possible but both the media channels and the public would get bored pretty quickly.   We might expect some long term enhancement here but not as much as during the Games.

Well, the next test is the Paralympic Games and it will be interesting to see the difference.   There is already a different attitude.   Before the Olympics there was both excitement and nervousness - would the plans work?   This time neither is really there, certainly not as much.   Will that lead to us all being a bit too blase?   Only time will tell.