The Frequentis Incident and Crisis Management (ICM) solution officially has been taken into operation, enhancing the way that Sydney Trains manages and resolves incidents on its railway network.
Sydney Trains operators can now enter incident information in real time, increasing efficiency and boosting operational performance. Implementation has taken place over a phased project roll-out. The REM client has been in use in Sydney Trains Rail Operations Centre (ROC) by incident managers since December 2018.
The mobile application and web portal is being deployed to all Sydney Trains customer service teams over a four-week period in June 2019, following a successful pilot with 150 users in May.
The New South Wales Government is investing heavily in Sydney Trains to ensure that the rail network can increase its capacity for the rapidly growing customer demand. In preparation for the expected rail network growth, Sydney Trains wanted to improve customer experience, reduce delays and set itself on a path to centralising 14 control centres into one streamlined ROC.
The introduction of a new railway emergency management system (REM) was key to enabling the effective management of incidents, so that normal services could resume as quickly as possible after a disruption. The Frequentis ICM REM solution was selected thanks to its success in similar projects globally.
“Rail passenger numbers in Sydney are set to double by 2024,” said Geoff Howard, ROC programme director for Sydney Trains. “A step-by-step modernisation of Sydney’s rail network has incorporated many different operational functions and systems into a single location, including implementing the ICM from Frequentis.
“Operators have praised the ease of use of the ICM solution for logging and viewing incidents, and the co-ordination of all communication, providing up-to-date information to our customers. Being able to respond and recover from incidents faster will ensure that we can cater for the projected capacity increases and meet the customer demand of the future.”
When streamlining multiple operation centres, an initial concern is often the loss of local knowledge. However, the Frequentis ICM solution ensures that this is not the case by centrally capturing such information, including emergency contact numbers for local contractors and emergency services. Based on the underlying responsibility model, staff have all relevant information for a specific location available and can record, manage and access incidents efficiently and safely from a mobile device, web portal or desktop client.
“The Frequentis ICM is a highly effective decision-making support tool allowing operations staff to efficiently manage incidents affecting the performance of the rail service,” added Thomas Karl, Frequentis vice-president for public transport. “The sophisticated software engine manages incidents based on the time, location and classification of the occurrence. By accelerating information sharing between operational staff, incidents can be resolved faster and passengers are kept moving.”