LIGHT RAIL
E An impressive performance
ver since opening to the public in 1987 the Docklands Light
Railway has provided a vital public transport service to a number of key areas throughout London whilst acting as a catalyst in the rebirth of many areas along its route, earning it the nickname of the ‘regeneration railway.’
Now it is due to form a key part in the Olympic experience, whilst a variety of extension and refurbishment works mean that the service is constantly improving.
Performance on the railway has improved markedly over the last six months, according to Docklands Light Railway director, Jonathan Fox.
“In terms of monitoring the performance of DLR, we use a different measure than the PPM, which is used by national rail services. Instead, we use a plus or minus three minutes of right time as our punctuality measure and during the four weeks to end of June that figure was at 97.6 per cent of all trains run.
“This means that our performance has returned to levels which our customers have grown to expect through the years; however we still see opportunity for further growth.
“Another measure of service performance on the DLR is the number of 20 minute delays that passengers experience across the network. To put these measurements into context - in April 2009 the moving annual average was around sixteen of these delays per month. Whilst this may not sound very much,
Oct/Nov 10
it is around one day out of every two.
“Although these delays may not happen when many people are travelling, they are still of concern to those of us who are managing the DLR. By the end of June this year we reduced the comparable number down to eleven and on an improving trend. This is still not perfect for us and our passengers but it is certainly much better. This is borne out by the average over the last six months being seven such delays and I expect that by the end of this year we will be reporting even further improvements.”
Despite there being room for improvement against the delay indicators, the Docklands Light Railway is still improving its overall performance.
“I think we can establish that we have moved forward and our passengers have noticed the improvements, as DLR customer satisfaction scores increased from 80 to 83 per cent of satisfied passengers to the end of June this year. These numbers may sound small but they are hard won when you work at the end of the market where people are already broadly satisfied with what you do.”
Like every other railway, the DLR is continuously improving and expanding and this year has seen the completion a major infrastructure project to allow three car operation.
“Whereas we used to have only two car trains, we now have three car train capacity over most of the network with the rest to come by early 2011. The first three car
passenger train ran in February this year, with a new timetable establishing the benefit of full 3 car operation on the main Bank- Lewisham route two months later in April. Since this change over we have received some very good feedback from our passengers, which I’m sure has fed through in terms of the customer satisfaction figures.
“The reliability of the three car trains is also holding up very well, never a given with such a significant operational change, so we are finding this has been a very popular move. The DLR timetables were then given a further enhancement in July, which saw trains running every four minutes between Bank and Lewisham instead of every four and half minutes. This gave us an eleven per cent increase in capacity.”
On the rest of the three car project, DLR has now completed work between Stratford and Poplar, along with having three car capacity already on the Woolwich Arsenal extension and City Airport extension.
“This means that although demand doesn’t quite yet justify us increasing the capacity to three cars all the way to Woolwich, we have three car operation functionality on all lines, apart from the Canning Town to Beckton route which will be ready early next year - in good time for the Olympic Games.
There were four main projects for the Olympics - the three car programme; the Woolwich Arsenal extension and the procurement of 55 new vehicles, taking the fleet from 94 to 149.
As works continue to constantly improve the Docklands Light Railway, Rail Technology Magazine spoke to Jonathan Fox to find out why the railway has continued to perform so well
“The final piece in the jigsaw is the Stratford International extension which will go to the heart of the Olympic Park. This will also be the only rail connection feeding the high speed service at Stratford International.
“Although this project is now on course for completion for the turn of the year, many people are looking forward to it given its critical role in the Olympic transport plan. With all of this activity taking place, it is inevitable that job creation will occur in the area.
“Although DLR are not taking on people as such, our contractors – particularly on the Stratford International extension, have a number of people working on the project and as they near completition I expect there to be a push for people to help have it finished on time.
“Our operating company Serco will also be taking on additional passenger service agents to staff the trains on the Stratford extension line, once it becomes operational.”
So post Olympics, what will be Jonathan’s main focus?
“I would like to see our customer satisfaction scores being in the highest position they can be, both across TfL and in comparison with other light railway systems around the world. Secondly, I am looking to work with our partners to continue to drive performance levels upwards so that we are well prepared for the Olympics and also so that our passengers can feel the legacy benefits of that long into the future.”
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