Fighting vandalism with
Problems caused by vandalism, graffi ti and maintenance issues are synonymous with railways across the world, and the Tyne & Wear Metro service is no exception. In an endeavour to tackle the issues created by damage to its property, the company implemented an innovative strategy that has literally changed the face of its infrastructure, as Simon Hopper, director at Raspberry Software, explains.
T
he award-winning Tyne & Wear Metro service, owned by Nexus and operated
by Deutsche Bahn Regio, caters for some 40 million passengers over its 48-mile, 60-station network every year. The operators are committed to infrastructure improvement with a £385m programme set to modernise the system between 2010 and 2021.
As part of its charter stating its aim for passengers to ‘enjoy trains that look and feel as new, and stations that are smart and welcoming’, TW Metro needed to tackle an on-going issue that was causing a range of problems. A poor environment at almost every one of the company’s stations was being caused by vandalism, graffi ti and general deterioration, not just resulting in customer dissatisfaction, but having an ongoing impact on staff morale and putting the company at risk for performance fi nes.
As a company committed to high levels of customer service, Deutsche Bahn identifi ed that it needed to fi nd a long-term communications and management solution for TW Metro that would allow the situation to be measured and managed, reduce unnecessary resources on site trips and administration and reduce the liability of fi nes by facilitating a quick response system.
The commitment to change was fraught with challenges; to source a solution that could meet the needs of 60 geographically dispersed stations across the north-east of England, with a large workforce that was not generally confi dent with technology. In addition, due to consistently imprecise briefi ngs, remedial work teams were often delayed getting to sites and were unable to identify the tools and materials required before leaving the depot.
Consequently, Deutsche Bahn appointed Raspberry Software, a company that specialises in providing bespoke software solutions, with a proven track record in the railway industry.
Raspberry Software developed an innovative smartphone solution to allow TW Metro to quickly identify and report instances of graffi ti, vandalism and maintenance issues so that work teams could be despatched immediately to complete remedial work to minimise the effect on customers and reduce the risk of further damage and operator fi nes.
In delivering the project, Raspberry Software designed a mobile app that could collect reports of vandalism, graffi ti and station faults, with the ability to create notes and images that would give a clear picture of the required response. Every member of staff was issued
with a smartphone, enabling them to collect data in near real-time and instantly store and share it on a dedicated cloud server.
The easy-to-use system included pre-written reports and workfl ows that could rapidly identify sites with problems and provide trend data.
TW Metro staff were quick to engage with the easy-to-use system, resulting in an immediate increase in the speed and effectiveness of issue reporting.
Thanks to the real-time design of the new process, a control centre was able to have a bird’s-eye view of instances of vandalism, graffi ti and deterioration, assess priorities and despatch fully-equipped work teams to deal with issues almost immediately.
The strategy has been an outstanding success across every station, with instances of vandalism and graffi ti greatly reduced, faster response times, improved resource management,
employee engagement and
working relationships and a greater confi dence of the Nexus PTE in Tyne & Wear Metro. Signifi cantly, there are also enhanced levels of public satisfaction.
The system has won both Deutsche Bahn awards and external recognition, including full trials on their stations in Germany in addition to trials commissioned by several other UK train companies.
As the project continues to evolve, Deutsche Bahn has commissioned further work on Raspberry Software’s rail-based solutions across its group of companies.
Sharon Kelly, customer service director at DB Regio Tyne and Wear, said: “Raspberry Software’s introduction of the Service Quality PDA solution has been a major contributor to cost reduction, streamlining our business process and ultimately raising customer satisfaction.”
STAND: C82 FOR MORE INFORMATION
T: +44 1394 387386 E:
Simon.Hopper@raspberrysoftware.com
rail technology magazine Apr/May 13 | 115
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