Signalling
The £100 million Nottingham re-signalling project was one of the largest ever delivered. Now that the station has re-opened, customer service director,Neil Micklethwaite describes how East Midlands Trains helped keep passengers on the move
W
e invested more than three years of detailed planning to ensure that our customers faced the least
amount of disruption possible. Working with other train operators, we created a simple, easy to understand colour-coded timetable that included every single train and bus service throughout the works. Our customer service teams worked with 46 bus co-ordinators and around 100 volunteers to help keep people on the move. Equipped with iPads to help find the most up-to-date travel information for customers, our team of purple clothed volunteers were instantly recognisable and were on hand for more than 12 hours a day at different locations to provide advice and help.
installed real-time electronic information screens. We’ve accommodated dogs, bikes, pushchairs and lots of luggage on our buses, and everybody needing to travel on one of our replacement bus services benefited from an industry-first 15 per cent discount on their ticket.
Our friendly team of volunteers helped to ensure that passengers waiting for buses were given the best service possible. We gave away hundreds of bottles of water to keep people cool and lent people umbrellas when the weather took a turn for the worse. We erected special bus shelters and even had extra toilets and waiting rooms installed at Nottingham and East Midlands Parkway.
De-stress with Shirley Stressman Our life-sized Nottingham mascot, Shirley Stressman, was a regular visitor to the station. Taking time away from tweeting passengers through her dedicated twitter feed, @Shirley_updates, Shirley could often be seen at Nottingham station giving out timetables and advice to passengers and posing for photos with excited children.
Shirley also helped us to give out hundreds of blue iced cupcakes to mark
Military style bus operation Our military style bus operation saw around 750 buses and 160 bus drivers a day helping passengers to keep moving around our network. By working in partnership with Nottingham City Council and the Highways Agency, we were able to give access to the most up- to-date information through specially
Overwhelmed by positive feedback This was the biggest ever project that East Midlands Trains has embarked upon and we have been overwhelmed by the amount of positive feedback we have received, which demonstrates the real value of our years of planning with our partners Network Rail. We now have a railway around
the birth of the Royal Baby and red and white macaroons to celebrate England retaining the Ashes. We also surprised people with free hotel giveaways, family day out tickets and theatre tickets.
Biggest ever comms campaign We launched our biggest ever communications campaign to make sure customers were fully prepared for the re- signalling works. Special posters, leaflets, a dedicated webpage and Twitter feed as well as huge city centre billboards all helped to make sure people had the latest information about our services. Our 24-hour control centre worked with other agencies to get real-time traffic information and project updates to pass on to our customers.
October 2013 Page 65
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