Data Management
The London Underground carried one billion passengers last year, and 10 million TfL users have an Oyster card, the RFID pass that allows travellers to access and pay for their travel on the TfL network. "All Londoners owe a debt to the dedicated staff of London Underground who work so hard to get so much out of the oldest Tube network in the world," Tim O'Toole the London Underground managing director has said. There are also over 8,000 buses plying the historic streets, while the Congestion Charge has forced car usage down by 21 percent and raised £123 million (US$243 million) for the financial year 2006/07, which has been re-invested in public transport. Significant numbers, and numbers that are just the tip of the iceberg containing the amount of data that TfL produces and handles. Every time an Oyster card is swiped on a bus or at a Tube station, TfL accrues data.
"We generate more data than many, and we need it because we are managing people's journeys," Pavitt says, adding that the organization is getting better at using that information. There is a debate about how the data is used, both by TfL and other organizations, especially if it has commercial importance. Pavitt is straight to the point: "I want to make all our information available to the public." He certainly sees how it could be commercially valuable and is improving the data so that, should the organization choose to offer it to outside organizations, it is in a fit state, but he has "no idea on what will be done". Pavitt sees traveller information in the same way as he sees information on where a train or bus is on the network: it should be shared with the TfL staff and the TfL customers so that they can make decisions.
Pavitt and his team are currently undergoing an infrastructure refresh and vendors are learning that he is not to be trifled with. Pavitt is quick to point out that the technology he inherited was overall very good. The problem was that the organization is only eight years old, therefore integration of earlier systems was a major issue and his team is now trying to join up the systems, based around an SAP enterprise resource planning infrastructure. The number of data centers is being reduced and he is going through the outsourcing agreements with a fine toothcomb, noting that "the majority of these are exceptionally weak". In place will come a new structure where the simple transactional processes operated by IT systems will be outsourced and critical information management will be brought in house. Data centers will be outsourced, but staffed by an in-house team. Desktop support for command level people is also to be run in house, including station managers -- people who the network depends on. Pavitt discovered that TfL had 11 enterprise deals with one vendor, all at different prices. One deal at one price is now in place. "The suppliers haven't rushed out to hug me, we just told them how it was going to be," he says.
Enough To Go Round
Despite the moans of Congestion Charge payers, Pavitt says he doesn't have a bottomless pit of money, but adds that: "The budget I am operating to has not been cut and we are running significantly under budget." Also, the savings he has made are paying for parts of the refresh. "We should bear some of our own pain".
There is no deviation from method with Pavitt, it's all about the customer, and IT, no matter the organization, "is just a transaction". Being a CIO is not about being from the business or IT, "a CIO understands transactional management."
Pavitt believes his team understand that and will deliver their bold vision, and he has a successful story on which to base that belief: "Oyster is more advanced than most companies can ever achieve."
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