You can find lots to read here too “HARROGATE LINE – bid for “metro” trains! Proposed new scheme to electrify and upgrade the Harrogate Line“.  I just love the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce use of a single exclamation mark.  Speaks volumes to me.

start…….

CC :Brian Dunsby, Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce

CC :Andrew Jones MP

CC :Customer Relations, Northern Rail

 Dear Harrogate Advertiser,

I would like to take the opportunity, through your newspaper to comment on the headline which appeared in your edition of Friday 15th July 2011, “Bold vision to transform our trains”.

They are indeed “hugely ambitious” plans. I don’t think there is any doubt in this statement. The Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce has a forward thinking vision, which I absolutely agree with and support. However, there is a difference between blatant media hype and the actual real situation on the ground. I strongly believe that this proposal to use former London Underground rolling stock and the installation of a 3rd rail power system is totally unrealistic. However, there still exist many problems on the Harrogate Line which need addressing.

The plans to add new stations and to run a turn up and go service is a brilliant suggestion. BUT… Where is the money coming from and who is going to build and maintain the infrastructure and where will the rolling stock be maintained? There is no 3rd rail connectivity to any local train depots. I would ask, where is the consultation with the current incumbents, Northern Rail and Network Rail?

How much is all this going to cost? Figures of £150m are knocking around. That is a great deal of money for a system where the only other comparable operation is on the Isle of Wight with 6 trains and 8 miles of line.

As a regular user of the Harrogate Line between Harrogate and Leeds and return at peak times the problems, as I see them, is that of overcrowding on the Leeds to Horsforth section, old, noisy, dirty and poorly maintained rolling stock, an infrequent service between York and Harrogate and its single track section and a general lack of available rolling stock.

More often than not, trains arrive with 3 or 4 carriages and things work fine. On the occasion that 2 carriages arrive at peak times the problem is very apparent. It is fair to say that the majority of passengers get on and off in the section between Horsforth and Leeds. Passengers have to stand or are often left on platforms. If Northern Rail had more carriages available to them at peak times, I believe this pinch point would be solved. The running of a fast service from Leeds to Weeton perhaps, or a shuttle type service to and from Horsforth would also solve this issue. I believe Northern Rail are incompetent and do not have any concept of resource planning. Often a 2 carriage train will be waiting at Leeds, the incoming service will arrive and will be coupled together, former a welcome 4 carriage train. This coupling process often doesn’t work, the rear train in then left behind and we have a 2 carriage service again. In their defence, Northern Rail may have the rolling stock, but due to its age, maintenance becomes a factor as does reliability so trains are off the network receiving attention not in revenue service.

As an example of the sheer lunacy and bad planning demonstrated by Northern Rail, a cricket game took place recently at Headingley between England and Sri Lanka. This event was well publicised many months in advance. We are all encouraged to make use of public transport but 2 carriages arrived at Hornbeam Park that morning which arrived full from Harrogate, and was dangerously overcrowded after picking up at Hornbeam Park. Those left waiting on the platform at Pannal and subsequent stations could only watch in envy as the cattle truck stopped and moved off without any additional passengers joining. This utter shambles of a company couldn’t even work out that more people would want to use the train that day. The addition of 2 more carriages would have solved this situation. I don’t think this is a difficult problem to solve, if Northern Rail want to solve it.

If the rolling stock is an issue for being old, I would question why proposals are in place to replace stock built in the 1980′s with that built in the 1970′s. This ex-underground stock may have been recently refurbished but the underlying chassis and fabric of the stock is 40 years old. This is not progress and does not represent an “upgrade” to the Harrogate Line. As for the levels of comfort offered by this “new” stock. You just wait and see. I travelled on this stock, in London, for the best part of 3 years and I can imagine the dishevelled look of business people and conference goers arriving at Harrogate after a bone shaking ride from Leeds. Most of them would probably be stood up too because as they are designed for short commuter hops and have significantly less seats that traditional rolling stock. I would prefer to stick with the current stock to be honest and its not often you hear me say that.

I believe the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce should spend their time and money more wisely and actually work with the current operators in a partnership to improve the service on this line. Yes, public transport is important for the town but we need to be realistic. Investment in new rolling stock, to compliment what we have already would be an almost instant win. I’m not asking for brand new carriages, but those carriages that are surplus to requirements elsewhere on the network. The Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce proposals would see major disruption for many years while the infrastructure is built and the underground trains are not available until 2014.

Everyone has a car these days and money for investment in new public transport schemes just isn’t there. Lets face these facts and move on. I keep hearing the desire to re-open the railway through Ripon. Laudable yes, but totally unrealistic and a waste of everybody’s time. I would urge the Harrogate Chamber of Trade and Commerce to instead look at ways to improve traffic flow within Harrogate. Skipton Road, Wetherby Road and Knaresborough Road are effective no-go areas for much of the day and do not promote movement around the town. From my home in Bilton it can take me 20-30 minutes to travel to Sainburys which is no much more than a 1 mile journey. I read that their are proposals for a Park and Ride scheme. This I support, but will no doubt be located on the favoured south side of the town and us in the north still suffer.

I would close by summarising that I think these proposals are unrealistic but that work is needed to improve the Harrogate Line. Just not this option.

Yours sincerely,

Graham Hyde

……end.

Who knows where this will go?

A response…… There is alot of copying and pasting going on here I think, but I still think the likelyhood of this scheme happening is zero.

• Short-term  deliverable – a quick win “in our lifetime”
• •Segregated line – no freight and no side routes
• •High Impact – alleviates overcrowding, improves frequency
• •Great value for money, affordable with proven demand growth
• •Tried and tested 3rd rail technology – as used on LU and DLR
• Can be installed without major disruption to the current services
• Recently upgraded and refurbished full size 6-car trains
• Seats for 280 and standing room for another 821 standing
• •Improved seating comfort with punctuality and reliability
• 4 sliding doors in each car driver operated for faster boarding 
• •Efficient operation and environmentally sound.
• •Walk-up service will stimulate modal shift from car to train
• •Private enterprise partnership with local Councils & Chamber
• •“Can do” and “deliverable” approach – driven by local partners

Dear Graham

As you receive this email we’ll be preparing for our first training session in Colombo ahead of our quarter-final against Sri Lanka later in the week. I think it’s fair to say our journey has been a rollercoaster ride and whilst there’s no doubting we could’ve played better in some of the matches I have been delighted with the fight and determination we’ve shown throughout the tournament so far. There’s no doubting Sri Lanka will be a tough opponents. They’ve played well throughout the tournament so far and fully deserve our respect. But, I’m confident they’ll come up against a very committed England team that is determined to take this opportunity to claim a place in a World Cup semi-final. As always your support means everything to us. The following we had throughout the tour to Australia was amazing and we’ve seen something similar over the past month as we’ve travelled around South East Asia. On behalf of the team I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you and hope to see you over the course of the summer.

Andrew Strauss

The vision for the future of health care described in The NHS White Paper demands better information to support decision making by the public, patients, commissioners and providers.  These demands require some new thinking to the old issue around geographies and populations.

This seminar will look at the potential knowledge that could be unlocked using a key honed using geography and population information. The session will also consider some of the challenges and pitfalls for analysts, present some examples of solutions to enable time series analysis of health and discuss the latest views around how geography and population data help informaticians meet the new demands for health and social care analysis.

Dr Paul Norman from Leeds University and myself, Graham Hyde, presented at a lunchtime seminar building on the strategic partnership work between Leeds University and the NHS Information Centre.

Geographies and populations, Where are the boundaries?

new demands for health and social care analysis

In these times of austerity in the Public Sector, when this year’s AGI GeoCommunity event was announced, my heart sank somewhat when I thought of the process that I must follow to get authority to attend.  Company policy is vague and funding amounts even more so. Agreement was sought from Line Manager, Line Manager’s Line Manager, Line Manager’s Line Manager’s Line Manager, Exectutive Director.  Principals before Processes?  Not really.

This year’s event is entitled “Placing Ourselves in the New Economy“.  Sounds interesting, but then these annual events in my view are must attend things.

It all boils down to time spent on the form…..and the ground work of agreeing my attendance with my line manager several months ago at my annual performance review.  AGI GeoCommunity is a cut and paste every year!

Q1. Please give a brief description of the learning activity you are applying for:
Two day conference on the application of geographical information and information systems offers two full days of thought leadership, practical education, knowledge transfer and real world best practice case studies.

Q2. Is this development need essential for the job ?
Yes/No

Q3. Please detail how this learning activity will benefit the work area and the (insert company name)? (linked to the business plan and (insert company name) strategy)
The (insert team name) team at the (insert company name), under its Service Level Agreement with the (insert sponsor organisation), supports (sponsor organisation) and the (insert company name) itself on all aspects of GIS and Digital Mapping.  This support is particularly important at this time as the new Public Sector Mapping Agreement goes live on 1st April 2011 and with the imminent shake up in health geography relating to GP Commissioning and GP Consortia.  Continuing to represent the interests of Health in this area of knowledge remains a focus of the team and staying up-to-date on the latest trends and developments assists that function.

Q4. How will the learning outcome be evaluated? The success of the activity will be measured against these – No application will be considered without clear learning outcomes having been identified)
Networking with colleagues, customers, suppliers and experts in the field.
Best practice in the use and display of geographic information.
Learn about new developments and latest thinking in the sector.

Q5. Please indicate which other methods of meeting this development need have been considered.
Coaching/Mentoring  0 e-Learning 1 Coaching   0  Library  0 Shadowing  0 Books 1 Research via internet   1

Other: (please expand)
As this is the only event of its type in the UK, and Geography is the core function of our team, and is a priority 1 task, there are no sensible alternatives to the depth of learning, skills, experience and opportunities that could be gained from attending this event.
Other seminars covering similar (but not the same) ground exist, but are more focused on individual suppliers or market sectors and may be more expensive (for example ESRI conference in the USA). 

Being an AGI Member pays dividend with a cheaper rate, as does getting in early to take advantage of the early bird discounts.  The online booking is simple and quick. Within a few minutes I had emailed our training section an invoice. Efficient or what?  Unfortunately I could not pursuade management to pay for the conference ice breaker but Alan’s quiz is very hard so I won’t miss that! The new location in Nottingham means a early start but closer to home. There was mention from a number of the Northern based GI people of getting a geo-funbus going.  Steve Hall of Mercator GeoSystems Ltd offered his VW Campervan.

See you in Nottingham on 21st and 22nd September.  I’ll leave the actual Route to Success open for others to comment on the best route but I will say I will probably mostly be using A1 and M1.

The recent spanking that Australia recieved at the hands of England is revealed here in all its statistical glory.

Checking with a leading web mapping company run by Greg Oogle finds a drive time of 5 days straight from my home town of Harrogate to Delhi.  6289 miles.  That doesn’t include any rest breaks.  So it is a possibility. I think delivery would be pushing it.

The route would take us down to the South Coast and through the Channel Tunnel, across France, Germany, Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and then into India.

The Route

Who’s coming?

The future is GP lead commissioning with the removal of PCTs and SHAs.  OK, fine.  Are all GPs in it for the love of the job or are they in it to make money?  Do they want to give the face to face bad news to a patient that they think the money they could spend on some life extending drugs for them, will actually be spend to fund operations to save the lives of 4 children.  Tough call, when they’ve got a brand new BMW in the car park.  This kind of bad news is currently handled faceless administrators in the PCTs.

Traditional geography will dissappear in the form of Primary Care Organisations and Strategic Health Authorities.  How will health use Geography – or not – when the NHS is restructured?  It is certain that the lowest geographical unit will be the GP Practice, but that doesn’t have a defined geography.  A patient can now register with any GP, anywhere they like.  Each GP must organise himself into a GP Consortia creating a cluster of GPs, again, with no defined geography.  The Public Health paper does state…. p. 62 Paragraph 4.5 GP consortia will have responsibility for the whole population in their area.  How?  The population that are registered with a GP are covered, what about those that aren’t?

Do we need defined health geography as we have had?  Perhaps not.  A GP Consortia will have to report to a Local Authority, could be more than one, but to report health statistics at Local Authority level would be unhelpful for health inequalities and health needs analysis, regeneration, service planning.  would publication of health information be better at lower levels?  I think so.  Make use of LSOAs.  Well established building blocks which are small enough to identify areas of need within a Local Authority.  Small numbers may be a problem, but there lies another issue.  Information Governance around health information is tight to say the least.  Should it be?  To be honest if I thought my health information was beign analysed and would inform decision makers on more appropriate service provision or targetted intervention programmes, I don’t care.  I’d probably already have posted it on twitter or facebook anyway!

A post on the Guardian DataBlog Few patterns in GP commissioning pathfinders on 12th January 2011, reveals a lovely map, using Google.  Last month the DoH named the first 52 pathfinder consortia. Information from eight of England’s 10 SHAs revealed GPs have grouped into around 260 consortia, suggesting there will be 300-350 nationwide.  DoH national clinical commissioning network lead Dr James Kingsland warned the figure was ‘frighteningly similar’ to the original number of PCTs. There were 302 PCTs before mergers in 2006 created the current set of 152

Each Pathfinder Consortia does include a geography, mostly Local Authorities or Counties.  An interesting point is raised “…The range of sizes and types of consortia allows for experimentation. It might cause problems later as the remaining GP practices have to choose a consortia to join, and could be forced to fill in the gaps – although it’s possible they would be able to join existing consortia. And health secretary Andrew Lansley is clearly more interested at this stage in trying new models and seeing what works, rather than keeping the picture tidy.”

In my day job I have been trying to engage with Policy people but with little success.  It would appear that the NHS restructure does not consider Geography to be very high up on its list of things to do.  What I find worrying, is that resolving the issue of Geography within Health may be a done deal already without any consultation or expert advice.

Perhaps DoH has a Plan B up its sleave anyway and the reforms are just too big a deal?  Time will tell.

April 1^st is fast becoming a memorable date in the calendar not just for practical jokes.  It could potentially be renamed as “GI Day”.

As a result of the Ordnance Survey Consultation we saw the release of OS OpenData^TM on 1^st April 2010.  This made a selection of Ordnance Survey mapping available for unrestricted reuse and exploitation.  1^st April 2011 will see an equally significant event when Government makes an extensive range of core products from Ordnance Survey available as the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA).  It will be the largest collective agreement between Ordnance Survey and Communities and Local Government (CLG) and brings together the Pan Government Agreement, Mapping Services Agreement, NHS Digital Mapping Agreement and the Greater London Agreement.

Key features of PSMA.

• a portfolio of core products covering Great Britain supplied by Ordnance Survey, plus the scheduled updates of the OS OpenData products;
• membership open to all eligible public sector organisations in England and Wales;
• centrally-funded by CLG.  CLG does not invoice members for any PSMA-related fees.  The PAF costs for the PSMA are also centrally-funded;
• the same licence terms for all members to promote and enable data sharing, with provision to supply data and derived data with Contractors and End Users;
• ability to share derived data with the public sector covered by the OSMA;
• Free To Use licensing included
• An exemption process that allows members to apply for derived data to be released as Free To Use data.

The PSMA supports two key government objectives; the Devolution and Localism Bill which devolves greater powers to councils/individuals and the Transparency agenda to deliver better value for money in public spending.  PSMA will give the Public Sector access to a wide range of geographic data provided by Ordnance Survey and will result in significant cost savings, greater data sharing, more effective joint working which will drive forward improvements in public services in England and Wales.

Members of all existing collective purchase agreements are eligible to join PSMA including some others.  Town and parish councils together with emergency responders such as Mountain Rescue and RNLI are also eligible.

Licensing is becoming simpler too.  New licenses are being worked on which backs up Ordnance Survey’s commitment to making licensing less complicated.  PSMA Members will be able to use the data for any non commercial purpose so long as it is in the delivery of Government policy and services defined as their core business.

A significant outcome of the Government’s response to the OS Consultation was the desire to introduce a National Address Gazetteer (NAG).  Details are still to be finalised but it is not an easy task to leverage the benefits of the National Land and Property Gazetteer, Ordnance Survey Address Layer 2 and Royal Mail PAF into a new product.

A public sector Geographic Information (GI) Group will be established to provide strategic direction for the agreement.  This will be led by an independent chair, and members will represent the interests of the public sector as a whole.  The GI Group will engage with public sector users to provide feedback to Ordnance Survey on how the PSMA should develop over time.  Proposals are in place to also create a network of regional based User/Technical Groups to engage Policy Makers in the use of GI and focussed on ensuring that the best use of Ordnance Survey’s data can be made.

The PSMA will predominantly be a web based experience.  Members of existing mapping agreements will migrate to the PSMA but must go through a sign up process and agree to the revised/new licence terms.  Super Users in each Member organisation will be able to grant access to other users within their organisation, or contractors, but still retain control over the data holding.  Depending upon size, orders may be delivered through a download service similar to that used by the already well established OS OpenData^TM.  Organisations will be able to manage their entire Ordnance Survey data holding in one place including OS OpenData^TM, PSMA and any commercial data arrangements.  Updates to datasets will be pushed through this channel too.

Lifting the cost barrier from Ordnance Survey product gives organisations the opportunity to use highly detailed and rich datasets which were previously out of reach.  MasterMap Topography Layer, Integrated Transport Network and VectorMap Local are three such high value products.

One issue though is what is the Value of Free?  Perception may be that now much of Ordnance Survey’s data is free to the Public Sector, it may have no value.  What happens to all the GI data budgets from Local Authority’s?  Is it simply handed back to the Finance Director and offered up as a cost saving or perhaps the challenge is for GI people to keep hold of the budget to invest in technology, training or other peripherals.  I think we all know what the answer is here.

Free shouldn’t be confused with useful though.  Not all users who will be signing up to PSMA have the skills necessary to manage the formats or volume of data which will be offered by Ordnance Survey.  Support is therefore critical for these users.  This is where the PSMA can offer and leg up to the GI Market Place.  Managed services, hosted services, tile caching or web services could be built on top of PSMA to provide data in more useful ways.

One of the major challenges and especially within the financial constraints imposed upon the Public Sector is how the success of PSMA is measured?  The up take of Ordnance Survey MasterMap products, cost savings made as a result of more detailed analysis or GI becoming mainstream and underpinning more Public Sector decisions?  More efficient bus or refuse collection routing, wider sharing of best practice across the public sector or more joined up working and data sharing across Local Government and the Health sector.

The introduction of the Public Sector Mapping Agreement on April 1^st 2011 may not make the front pages and is not a joke, but it is a significant milestone in Public Sector GI and brings with it many opportunities for the GI Community to show the power of Geographical Information.