Rail freight 'booming' because of HGV driver shortage
MONDAY BRIEFING: Rail freight 'booming' because of HGV driver shortage ++
Facemasks must be worn on all public transport in Britain from this morning, as the first step towards defending the population from the new omicron variant of Covid-19, which has triggered warnings from the world health community. The RMT, meanwhile, fears that enforcing the new rule could put its members at risk.
MONDAY BRIEFING: Safety course launched as level crossing misuse continues ++
Strikes by the RMT have started in a dispute over rosters on London's Night Tube, and Transport for London is warning that Underground services will be disrupted on five lines. London Underground's director of customer operations Nick Dent said: 'The RMT’s planned strike action is needless and it will threaten London’s recovery from the pandemic,' but RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: 'This strike is about the ripping apart of popular and family friendly agreements that helped make the original Night Tube such a success. Instead the company want to cut costs.'
New figures from the Office of Rail and Road reveal that passenger travel by train dropped by 78 per cent during 2020-21. This was the first full year of lockdowns caused by Covid-19, when travel by train was officially discouraged for months at a time. The ORR has published its estimates of station usage during the year, and these show that the busier stations in London included major hubs in the suburbs for the first time. Britain's busiest station was Stratford in east London, with 13,985,162 entries and exits. Stratford displaced Waterloo, which had occupied the top spot for 17 years, but in 2020-21 entries and exits at Waterloo fell from 86.9 million the previous year to 12.2 million.
WEDNESDAY BRIEFING: RDG moves ahead with standardised smart ticketing ++
Strikes have been called by the RMT on London's Night Tube lines later this month and during December, stalling the planned relaunch which had been timed to coincide with the run-up to Christmas. The dispute is over what the union described as the 'imposition of impossible and unreasonable demands on staff in advance of Night Tube reopening'. TfL responded that it was 'hugely disappointed that the RMT is threatening London with this unnecessary action'.