Why technology usually over-promises and under-delivers

We have had railways moving people around for over 150 years in the UK. From humble beginnings, we now have over 5000 miles of track serving to within perhaps 50 miles of virtually everywhere in Great Britain.

In these early days, railways were a difficult and inefficient system, mainly restricted by the available technology. For instance, steam trains could not travel very far without re-filling the water, something that was available at most stations and could take a noticeable amount of time, some larger engines were equipped with scoops to collect water from track-borne troughs but these had their own maintenance costs, especially if someone broke them by failing to retract the scoop!

Coaling was an issue and although diesel locomotives also require fueling, coaling was extremely variable from the largest semi-automatic filling machines at larger depots to literally a coal bunker and a spade at others, this was another potentially very time-consuming exercise.

Most larger steam locomotives usde a tender to carry coal and water and had to be turned so they were running locomotive first. Although the turning itself was not massively slow, in almost all cases, a loco would have to be released from a platform, driven to somewhere that was not necessarily very close, amid all the other services, and then turned before it could be brought back and used. In some cases, this could be performed around a triangle junction but this could take 20 minutes, even if there were no delays or stops.

Starting a locomotive from cold was a very slow process, taking anything up to 8 hours from cold to having enough steam for service. Naturally, this could not be started until all maintenance was completed which is why we used to see long lines of locos on depot departure roads, just waiting to raise steam.

Let us also consider the signalling system. All signals were originally mechanical and had to be maintained/lubricated and almost all signals as well as points were mechanically linked to a signal box. All of these linkages also had to be manually inspected and maintained as well as repaired. For purely mechanical reasons, these boxes would generally have to be within about 1000 yards of the points or signals they were controlling meaning that boxes were placed at very quiet locations, that happened to have a level crossing or a siding and these would require at least 1 person per day to staff. Many other boxes were staffed 24 hours per day, sometimes by as many as 6 people. The total number of signalmen in the 50s must have been massive.

So, as with most systems, the railways have improved, thanks to "technology". In the UK most trains are now electric, none of them need turning, very few still use locomotives anyway. Watering is only for toilets. Fueling is handled by pumps and hoses and is much easier and cleaner than coaling. Most trains spend their working day literally running end to end with no breaks for maintenance, turning, coaling, fire-lighting or anything else. An electric train can be started from cold and pulling a train within about 10 minutes. These improvements also mean we don't need a driver and a fireman, we can just have a driver, that has halved the salary budget already! Maintenance is far easier on electric trains than steam locomotives, most of which was purely mechanical and required welding and boiler-smith repairs.

Then we can look at signalling. Virtually all signals are now electrical and almost all mechanical signals that remain are electrically operated remotely. These are all controlled from power boxes requiring a tiny fraction of the people that used to be employed - perhaps 3 people covering 100 miles of railway.

And yet, the railways are not so much cheaper that tickets are half the price they used to be! How is this possible? How can we be saving what must be over 50% of the wage bill and enormous amounts on maintenance and dead time while we move locomotives around? How can we require far fewer locomotives since we don't lost time waiting for steam to be raised and coaling and watering to be carried out but still trains are considered a luxury by many people.

It's because technology over-promises and under-delivers. What actually happens is that when we are sold new technology, we are told that it can save us a packet, so it is charged out at a packet. Mechanical signals are a pain, but once they are installed, it is just maintenance costs - a bit of grease, some bits of metal and bolts to repair. What about a colour-light signal? I imagine they probably cost a few thousand each, more for the elaborate ones and then the installation is horrifically expensive. Specialist railway contractors are required due to Health and Safety jobs-worths who use the railway as a giant cash cow (either maliciously or perhaps well-meaning but naive). These contractors then have to pay money to get a line possession and perhaps some other specialist equipment like track trolleys - obviously people couldn't just carry things from their vans any more. Once they are installed, they work fine for a while, but what happens when they go wrong? No bits of metal and bolts here! Just another call to some specialist contractor who has to have specialist knowledge in safe systems of work, probably costing you £1000 per day (when they get paid £25K per year!) just to be able to go and buzz some wires and work out that a fuse blew or a bulb went out.

Look at all these other areas and there is something, some new technology that sells itself too well and which people buy into but without the knowledge to know whether the investment will ever repay itself. I used to work on locomotives that had a fairly basic microprocessor which logged faults. Guess what? Training was expensive, changes were basically out of the question and for most problems, we had to go straight to manufacturer to get help which was either slow or expensive or both.

Very sad really. I think many people still do not understand how technology is supposed to make things better/easier/cheaper and not provide license for someone to make a packet off the back of a well meaning company.

The long "road" to better roads

If you look at most roads around the country - excepting motorways, the condition is pretty sub-standard. Cycling on many local roads can be unerving when you spend more time watching the fractured edges of broken surfacing or trying to avoid 2 inch potholes than watching the other traffic.

There have been plenty of complaints in the papers about councils bemoaning the lack of funds to fix "potholes" but there is a obvious lack of leadership from the Department for Transport who are in a position to set the tone and legislation required to get the roads back to the correct standard.

In Japan, the roads in Osaka were immaculate. Even narrow side-roads looked brand new and despite cycling mostly on pavements, if you did need to go on the roads, it was never something to be dreaded. Japan can do it, why can't we?

There are a couple of issues at play here. There is the obvious concern about tight budgets. Despite what the media would have us believe, Central Government funding has been drying up in the UK for over a decade and since roads cost big money to resurface, it is easier to pay for things like Education and Welfare and hope that we will get another few years from the roads. One bad winter and Bang! the whole lot are instantly destroyed and there is still little money for repairs.

This however covers up an issue that seems much more sinister and destructive and something which the government can do and should do something about - the Utility Companies.

What do you think happens when someone like Virgin media move into an area to lay cables? Roads and pavements are dug up, cables are laid and then 'repairs' are made. Same for gas, electricity, water and everything else. These repairs, even when carried out correctly, drastically reduce the lifespan of the road surface. I can't find a reference but I read that it can be as drastic as reducing from > 60 years to 10 years since the joins between the repair and the good surface are never perfect enough to prevent ingress of water during the winter, which often expands, cracks and then defrosts. Anyone who has ever seen the people who make these repairs can understand that it is not exactly treated like surgery!

This leads to the classic Great British stand-off. The utility companies will insist on making repairs/upgrades/new installations and can pretty much do these at will to a road that might have been re-surfaced 3 months previously (it happened near Stroud despite the council asking in advance whether any works were due). The councils will bemoan the size of the problem and the fact that utility companies are making repairs that will effectively quadruple the cost of road repairs - excluding temporary repairs to potholes. Most repairs are not going to warrant a complete re-surface and even if they did, how much road would need re-surfacing for, e.g. a 50cmx50cm repair? The whole road for 100 metres either way?

There are a couple of solutions that councils could implement (but don't hold your breath). The first shorter term solution should charge utility companies either a retainer for, say, 5 years, where any subsequent damage/potholes are taken out of the retainer by the council or otherwise charging a surcharge for any works that are invasive (require road surface changes) at a high enough rate to make utility companies make more use of things like moles which can tunnel under a road.

The second and longer-term solution is to consider what the end-goal should be (something governments are not often keen to do) and then to start working on it. For instance, and I don't suggest this is necessarily viable, you could decide all services must be installed below pavements, which are much easier to repair with slabs - or at least the tarmac repairs are not subjected to heavy traffic and therefore all new roads must follow this in some way, perhaps with pre-installed ducts and draw-pits where there are houses so pavements do not always have to be re-dug. At the moment, someone digs it all up then fills it in, someone else digs it up and fills it in etc.. This would involve up-front money but not a great deal since most new services will be installed in ducts anyway so the extra cost of some more PP ducts paid for by the contractors or council would be much lower than the road repairs.

Anyway, whatever the government could decide, it is another problem that has been allowed to continue unbated for years and years - and this is unacceptable.

Why are the UK pavements so bad?

My experience of council executives is that they are somewhere between mediocre and incompetent. The usual excuses fly about including lack of money or red tape but to be honest, things can still be done if people had the will to do it and the pride of their work.

The pavements in Cheltenham are in a complete state. Some are tarmac and are usually passable but the ones that are paved consist of slabs that are largely cracked or in some cases have been damaged by tree roots. Once, I was pushing a friend in their wheelchair from his house about a mile to the town centre and to be honest, it was so hard pushing it that I doubt many people would be able to get around in a wheelchair by themselves.

Councils have a duty to repair pavements but of course they only have to do it when there is an imminent danger like a large crack or step in the pavement. Most of these cracked slabs are not dangerous, they just look very poor. Slabs are not expensive to buy but the council need to ask two very important questions and then answer them and then get on with it.

1) Why are the pavements getting cracked? I would suggest that this is primarily due to vehicles parking on the pavement - something that I don't believe is illegal in itself (although it should be!)
2) What are they going to do about it? The council, through the Local Government Association, should insist on changing the law so that parking on the pavement is an offence that can attract tickets and/or prosecution unless the pavement is designed for it (i.e. tarmac) AND there are signs that explicitly allow it, although it would be more consistent in these cases to shorten the width of the pavement and make people park on the road.

Once these two things are done, the council and/or police should ticket every person that they catch parking on the pavement. Sadly, this currently sometimes includes Police vehicles, other emergency services and even rubbish lorries, although if it was made illegal, this should only happen in genuine emergencies, where if damage is caused, it can be identified and repaired immediately and added where appropriate to any insurance claims.

Is no-one surprised that the standard of pavements is woeful when the people whose job it is to repair them have no way of keeping heavy vehicles off them? Walk through Cheltenham most days and you will see more than a handful of vehicles parked on the pavement (usually halfway). Ticket them! Set a principle and stick to it. Ensure it is enforced - another pathetic example is the amount of time it takes wardens to ticket a car. Most people who park illegally imho do so quickly (less than 5 minutes) so are next to zero chance of being charged.

Governments and parties are still missing these basics. They are all talk, talk, talk and all prove, regardless of party allegiance that they cannot handle any proactive fix to things that vex most ordinary people much more than wishy-washy numbers about immigration or foreign wars we know nothing about.