For readers based outside of London, you’re probably oblivious to the fact that yesterday and today London’s tube (trains that run underground) union decided they weren’t getting paid enough or that they wanted a bigger pension pot or something and threw their toys out of the pram and decided to go on strike.

Charming…

The streets of the City were filled with commuters unable to navigate themselves above ground. Looking at maps, looking at road signs, following the person who seemed to know where they were going.

Now there’s no way that anyone could justify the strike. I mean, its not like any other profession does that. What I’d like is a tube driver to have a heart attack, get rushed to the hospital and get told that the Dr’s and nurses union has called a strike, so they’ll have to die another day.

But it does raise the question as to whether or not London Underground employ any security consultants.

So, in the hope that anyone from London Underground is reading this here’s a free piece of consultancy:

Asset identification
What are your assets? No don’t give me the politically correct answer and say it’s your people. Your assets are your trains, the stations and the infrastructure used to support (train tracks etc)

Impact assessment
What would be the impact to you and your customers if the Confidentiality, Integrity or Availability of your trains, stations or infrastructure were affected?

Confidentiality : Low. You want station locations and train times to be public information

Integrity: Medium. A broken train could cause problems. Or defective barriers at a station could cause problems

Availability: VERY HIGH: Unless you’re homeless and use trains and stations as your home, you only use trains to travel. If its unavailable there will be a loss in revenue because no-one will pay to travel. Business will be impacted by staff not being able to make it in on time, or not able to commute at all.

Business Continuity Plans
In light of availability being such a big issue, some BC Plans should be made and put in place. So, in the event that your union decides to have a walk-out for a few days, you can still service London’s commuters.

The local London mafia is laughing. They know at the moment that to bring London to a standstill, they don’t need tons of fertiliser or wake up any of their sleeper cells. They just need to convince Joe in the Union that they’re not getting paid enough and there go all the tube drivers.

Options:
Seeing as I’m in such a giving mood today, I’ll even propose a short-term and long term solution to fixing the issue.

Tactical:
In the short term, the government should introduce compulsory train driver service to all 16-18 year olds, similar to how some countries mandate their young to enlist in the Army for a couple of years so they can learn how to defend their country in times of need and how to not drop the soap in the showers.

How hard can it really be to push a lever, open close doors and remind people to mind the gap?

You get the added bonus of getting all these youth off the streets and doing something productive.

Strategic:
Long term, do you really even need a train driver? If the Air Force can get unmanned fighter planes to work, surely you can get one man in a room to drive the worlds biggest train set.

Benefits will include never having to pay these drivers or worry about driver error. The computer will never get tired, never stop. It will create a true 24 hour train system to meet the demands of a 24 hour city.

Boris Johnson if you’re reading this, I’ll sort out this city’s transport problems for you and I’ll do it for a third of the price its currently being done at. Get your people to give my people a call and we can get rid of these lazy, greedy transport unions once and for all! *evil laugh*