Improving Your Railway Newsletter Spring2013

7/29/2019 Improving Your Railway Newsletter Spring2013

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Dear CustomerI know that many of you will have faced delays and disrupon to

your journey with us over the past few weeks. I am frustrated about

some of the ongoing issues and I understand the impact this will be

having on your lives.

We do have a comprehensive plan in place to address theperformance of our infrastructure and our trains. However, this

plan will take some me to implement, not least as we need to

carry on delivering a service for passengers every day, at the same

me as carrying out maintenance and renewals on what is in parts

a very old railway.

I wanted to reassure you that we are doing everything we possibly

can to improve your service and deliver a beer railway for you.

I am personally commied to driving forward improvements.Over the past 10 months, we have recruited a rst class team and

established a new organisaon to implement a comprehensive

recovery programme to allow us to deliver the service you expect

from South West Trains and Network Rail.

We are invesng hundreds of millions of pounds each year to

improve reliability and deliver a beer train service. Addional

money has now also been secured to deliver further short term

improvements.

We provided an update back in December on some of the plans

we had in place and this leaet provides a further update on the

improvements we have already made against this plan. We will

connue to provide regular updates on what is planned in the

short-term and medium-term to deliver a beer railway for all of

our passengers.

Tim Shoveller

Managing Director

South West Trains Network Rail Alliance

Our networkWe operate 643 miles of track with

1,375 sets of points and 4,394

signals and our network is one of

the most intensively used railways in

Europe. Over 2,000 passenger and

freight services run on our network

every day and 20% of all London

commuters travel into and out of

London Waterloo, the UKs busiest

staon.*

The reliability and performance

of our train service is higher than

before rail privasaon and we are

now carrying more than 100 million

addional passengers. Due to the

connuous running of this intensive

commuter service into Waterloo,it is an ongoing challenge to carry

out major improvement work which

doesnt impact on passengers.

Subsequently, upgrades to the

infrastructure have not been carried

out at the same pace as the growth in

passenger numbers.

This is something we are working

hard to address and we recently

outlined proposals to invest millions

of pounds to improve the reliabilityof the railway in and out of Waterloo

between 2014 and 2019.

However, we know that there are

some parts of our network that need

more urgent investment to allow

us to deliver more reliable services

and we do have an acon plan and

funding in place to make short-term

improvements.

* Source: TfL survey

Network Rail and South West Trains, working together to deliver more...

Spring 2013

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1.4%

1.4%

2.5%

4.1%

7.2%

19.0%

6.1%

3.6%

7.1%3.9%

7.7%

31.1%

4.8%

Fatalies

External other(including fire, level crossings, bridge strikes, animals on the line)

Other

0.2%

Fleet

Ill passengers

Signals, points, track circuitsand other infrastructure

Operaonal delays(Signaller, controller delay etc)

Passenger related delay(emergency alarm etc etc)Weather related

disrupon

Timetabling and

over-runningengineering works

Track faultsand defects

Traincrew

Trespass, vandalism and the

Other infrastructure

Our currentperformance

During recent weeks, we know

that there have been many

occasions where we have not

been able to deliver the reliable

service that you expect.

We are doing everything possible

to reduce the causes of even the

smallest incidents which can have

a severe knock-on eect on our

services.

The chart to the right shows

a break-down of the cause of

delays since the start of 2013.

Delivering beer services

during disruponThe most recent independent passenger

survey, published in January, demonstrated

that our commitment to delivering a beer

service and improved informaon during

mes of disrupon is starng to have animpact. The latest survey demonstrated a

sasfacon increase of 7% year on year,

and put us above the sector average in this

area. However, we know that more needs to

be done.

A huge amount of eort has been put into

managing disrupon more eecvely and

trying to minimise the amount of delay to

passengers. This has resulted in a step change

in the focus of our operaons team during

recent weeks.

Historically, our conngency plans have

been based on the reduced operability of

the network during mes of disrupon.

Fewer tracks available means fewer trains

can complete their adversed journeys or

maintain punctuality. As a result we need a

plan so we can give our customers the best

quality informaon possible during mes of

disrupon.

Our new approach is to quickly decide on

the best approach for our passengers and

the one which will help us to recover theservice in the shortest possible me and then

communicate this clearly to passengers and

our own sta.

And all the above has to be done quickly

and with the minimum inconvenience for

passengers. Our new plans are in the nal

stages of development and these plans will

enable us to make decisions even faster and

have a robust plan in place and improve

informaon to customers even further.

Managing disrupon

more eecvelyThere are currently around 70 dierent

performance-improving iniaves underway

covering the dierent areas of our business.

We will provide regular updates on these

work-streams. Some of the recent iniaves

include the following:

StaonsSome of our staons are very busy during peak

travelling mes and it can oen be dicult for

large volumes of passengers to quickly get onand o our train services in the short space of

me available. To try and assist passengers,

we have a range of new measures in place

at staons including addional training for

staon teams, a new queuing system at

Wimbledon to help with passenger ows and

new equipment to assist sta with dispatching

trains at Clapham Juncon.

Responding to incidents

We introduced a new EmergencyIntervenon Unit in late January to help us

respond more quickly to incidents on our

route. The Emergency Intervenon Unit (EIU)

is a ashing light dedicated patrol vehicle

which is based at Waterloo and is staed

by Brish Transport Police Ocers and our

mobile operaons managers.

The primary role of the patrol team will be

to aend any incidents that are causing or

have the potenal to cause disrupon to

the running of services, such as cable the,

fatalies, trespass and other relevant incidents,

including serious infrastructure faults.

The South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance

are the rst in the rail industry to introduce

a dedicated emergency intervenon unit

on the naonal rail network, and this

follows a successful roll-out on the London

Underground and our own trial during the

Olympics.

The key benet will be a reducon in the

incident response me and therefore how

the incident impacts on our services.

We esmate that the EIU will be able to

reduce our incident response me by 20%.

An example of the EIU in acon was in early

February, following reports of a person

behaving suspiciously at a staon. The EIU

arrived at the staon within ve minutes and

successfully helped to prevent an incident.

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Other issues which havean impact on our trainservice

There are a number of other issues outside of

our control, which can have an impact on the

service we can deliver. These include fatalies

and suicides, trespass and vandalism.

Fatalies and suicidesSadly, we connue to experience a number

of suicides on our network which have an

impact on the service we can deliver to

passengers. This is a problem for the whole

UK rail industry and is an issue that we are

taking very seriously.

We now have extra resource in place to

tackle this important issue which aects our

customers, our sta and local communies.

The latest stascs have shown a signicantyear on year decrease in the number of

incidents. However, we connue to work

closely with Samaritans on a range of

iniaves to try and further reduce the

number of fatalies on our network.

Work includes physical prevenon measures

(such as fencing) as well as ongoing sta

training and the use of communicaons

materials to reach vulnerable people.

We are also working more closely with key

stakeholders, including local authories,

police forces and mental health services tounderstand more about local communies

and develop area-specic ways of prevenng

incidents from taking place. Weve already set

up a number of mul-agency working groups

in priority locaons which gives us a beer

chance of reaching people at risk of suicide.

For more informaon about Samaritans,

visit samaritans.org.

Trespass and vandalism

Instances of trespass and vandalism on

our network can cause a serious impact on

the operaon of our trains. Preventave

measures being taken include extra binding

of cables and installing addional CCTV

cameras and alarms as a migaon againstcable the as well as an-trespass boards

installed at a number of staons.

Invesng to improve

the railway -

now and in the future

We are invesng over 300 million a year to

improve the infrastructure on our network

and 60 million to maintain the track and

infrastructure. On top of this, in the past few

weeks, we have agreed an addional 3 millionto be spent on delivering further improvements

and track repairs.

These are some of the improvements planned

or underway:

Signalling

Signals are used to control the route that our

trains take, and are the railway equivalent of

trac lights. There are 4,394 signals and

28 signal boxes on our route.

The majority of our signalling equipment

is generally in reasonable condion, with

the excepon of Feltham Signal Box, which

is sll using 1960s technology. This is an

important signalling centre which is crical

to the Suburban and Windsor lines. We are

planning a 50 million renewal of this signalling

equipment, which will be completed by 2017.

Other signalling improvement projects are

currently underway including:

lPoole to Wool resignalling

lSignalling renewals in the Farnham area

(this covers Farnham, Aldershot and

Ash Vale)

l Work in the Clapham area to ensure the

reliability of intensively used equipment

There are also resignalling schemes underway

at Wimbledon, Farnham, Aldershot and Ash

Vale which will be completed later this year.

These improvements will all go a long way

towards helping the daily reliability of our

network.

Power supply

Around 90% of our trains are powered byelectricity which is provided by the conductor

rail. The technology we use to control the

system dates back to the 1950s/60s.

We have a plan in place to spend

30 million over the next three years to deliver

improvements to the power supply to give us

the reliability we need.

Due to the greater demand on the electrical

supply needed by our modern trains, there

have been occasions recently when feeder

cables have become detached from the

conductor rail. This means the electrical supply

is broken and this causes disrupon to our

services.

We are invesng more than 1.5 million on a

scheme to double the power connecons to the

conductor rail which will improve the resilience

of the signalling power supply systems.

We are also invesng 1.6 million so that our

trains will be able to monitor the posion and

temperature of the conductor rail so we can

make a repair before a failure occurs.

Track

The track around Waterloo is one of the most

intensively used parts of track on our network

and needs signicant investment. Much of it is

due for replacement in the next few years, but

it is dicult to do this work without causing

signicant disrupon to our train services.

Historically, due to the need to connue

running an intensive commuter service into

Waterloo, this means that there have been

lower levels of replacement than ideal for such

important areas.

During 2013, we will be spending 12 million

to renew parts of the track on the approach

to Waterloo as an interim measure whilst

the complete renewal of Waterloo track is

planned.

A huge amount of planning takes place to

allow us to carry out track renewal and rail

replacement work. This work is carried out by

our own in-house teams and by an external

civil engineering company, Balfour Beay.

We appreciate this work has taken far

longer than planned, resulng in customers

experiencing unacceptable delays to our

Monday morning peak services. However, we

are determined to resolve the issues.

We are working very closely with our

own teams, and our external suppliers to

understand the issues and the measuresneeded to improve delivery and reduce

engineering overruns.

It would be easy to stop the renewals work

unl we are completely condent that all

the issues have been resolved, however, the

need to replace old rails means that this easy

opon would just add to our challenge to

maintain this very busy railway.

Other infrastructure issues

Last month we started a special programme

of work to replace some of the insulated joints

on our network. We have hundreds of theseinsulated joints on our routes, which help to

make the signalling work. When an insulated

joint fails, it breaks the current to the signalling

and causes a track circuit failure.

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Network Rail and South West Trains, working together to deliver more...

There are a number of dierent ways that

passengers can nd out more informaon

about our services:

Visit us at

southwesrains.co.uk Register for

Journey Check alerts

or check the latest train

running informaon through

our rainbow board.

Email: customerrelaons@

swtrains.co.uk

Follow us on Twier and be the

rst to know whats happening

on our network @SW_Trains

facebook.com/swtrains

Providing our network

informaon and details of our

latest oers.

Or visit one of our Meet the Manager

sessions dates and mes of all the

sessions can be found at southwesrains.

co.uk/meet-the-manager.aspx

Contact the

Network Rail Helpline on

0845 711 4141or email

[email protected]

Phone: 0845 6000 650 (opon 4)

Or follow on Twier @networkrail

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Communicang with

passengers

Our staon, on train and customer service

teams do their very best to keep passengers

updated with the latest informaon.

Our Twier feed, which has over 40,000

followers, provides a constant ow ofcomprehensive, detailed informaon during

disrupon.

We have invested signicantly over the last

year to improve communicaon with our

passengers, parcularly during mes of

disrupon. We have issued smart phones to

850 of our customer-facing sta to ensure

they can get updates to pass on to passengers

as quickly as possible.

We have also made some major

improvements to our website, with the

development of an enhanced mobile version

of the website, which allows passengers to

receive detailed informaon about their

journeys whilst on the move.

We have also launched a new online tool

oering passengers an easy, colour coded,

at-a-glance guide to how their service is

running. Investment has been made to

improve informaon at London Waterloo,

the UKs busiest staon, with a new public

address system and informaon screens.

Whilst this investment has made a signicant

step change in the way we can communicate

with our passengers, and this is highlighted

in the improvements shown in the recent

Naonal Passenger Survey, we recognise that

we must do more.

Improving Your Railway Newsletter Spring2013

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