Stations get their day in the sun

At the beginning of last year, Network Rail created a new director of stations and customer service post, and attracted Mike Goggin, one of the transport industry’s young high fliers to fill the role.

His appointment was marked by promises that Network Rail would place a higher priority on stations, improve their condition, deliver better service to its operator tenants and provide greater clarity internally and across the industry about its stations strategy.

It would seem that Goggin is in the process of making good on those promises. In his exclusive interview in this issue of New Transit, he has revealed that the company is putting together a blueprint for station design and modification.  The company’s work on the Network RUS (stations) is examining pedestrian congestion across all types of station from the largest to the smallest, to identify which stations will become crowded if no action is taken. A toolkit of generic interventions to combat the issues that will be faced in the short medium and long term is being worked up as part of the project.  The analysis will feed into the case the industry makes for future investment and enable operators and Network Rail to work up schemes so that they are ready to go should funding be made available.

In addition, the company is developing a guide to station planning and design that will support its project managers in thinking through how stations should be developed to meet the needs of passengers, funders and other interested parties.  Both documents are due to be published in the spring.

These workstreams typify a more proactive approach that Network Rail will take to station improvement across the railway. The company has generally been perceived as showing little interest in improving service at stations away from the major flagship projects.

However, Goggin wants to change the culture within Network Rail and adopt a proactive approach to taking forward low cost projects with train operators “If you take the passengers’ perspective and walk through their experience from their home to their destination you will find that all too often we trip ourselves up,” Goggin says. “There are simple things which Network Rail as landlord and franchisees as station operators can do - not expensive things, but keeping design and information simple and clear.”

Goggin will be the keynote speaker at New Transit’s annual RailStations conference in London on March the 1st. Alongside others with a specialism in this field the day will again put stations in a much needed spotlight and give those concerned about them a chance to form new relationships that break down the old barriers to acheiving improvement. Mike Goggin seems set to be a willing partner in making progress.