Issues Constraining Introduction of Timetable Changes by South Western Railway Report

Formative Assessment

Background

The rail industry in the U.K. has a long history and established system for changing the national rail timetable every six months, in May and December every year, with the changes varying in scale. Normally, the changes are minor and do not affect rail operations. In addition, when they are executed according to plans, passengers are unaffected and they get the benefit of accessing additional services (“British Parliament Report,” 2018). Timetable changes are important for the rail industry because they help in delivering extra capacity to meet customers’ demands. The changes also enable train companies to improve their revenue returns. However, the May 2018 changes were unprecedented in terms of the investment size and its implementation complexity. It had effects on very many sections of the British national railway network and was four times the scale of a normal six-monthly timetable change. This led to an array of issues leading to poor operational performance and as a consequence, industry, users, and wider stakeholder dissatisfaction. The following factors were the causes of the poor performance of the Thameslink route as a result of the new timetable in May 2018.

1. Poor Planning for the changes
2. Delayed Infrastructure upgrade
3. The incompetence of Network Rail department
4. Lack of trained drivers
5. Timbale was drawn late
6. Lack of coordination
7. Poor communication of the changes to passengers

Linkages between Causes of Poor Performances

Prior to changes in the timetable in May 2018, there was engineering work of upgrading the rail network in the United Kingdom. This was meant to greatly improve the services, but it failed to a large extent. Immediately after the new Thameslink timetable was introduced, the huge scale of cancellations, delays, confusion, and misinformation that graced the new timetable was a big shock to the commuters and the public. Firstly, the rebuilding of the London Bridge station, adding modern signaling and buying new trains and Tube-style frequency delays did not go as were planned (Topham, 2018). Fundamentally, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) did not have enough drivers, which affected the implementation of their plans (Topham, 2018). Despite claims by GTR that they employed more than enough drivers to run the expanded services the May timetable was due to provide, that was not the case (Topham, 2018). They lacked drivers who were trained on the exact model of trains that were introduced and the full route they were to operate.

Clearly, this pointed to shoddy planning done by GTR. Further, normally changing the timetable takes 16 months before its implementation but planning and execution of the May 2018 timetable changes took place in a matter of weeks. The lack of proper planning on the side of GTR was compounded by so many issues to do with strikes by its guards and drivers, which caused commuter despair for months. Other interrelated problems, on track and trains, were also well documented by GTR, and there was a warning for them to implement phased timetable changes. However, approval for this new plan came four months late from the Network Rail, putting pressure on planners (Topham, 2018). Additionally, GTR’s planning team, clipped of numerous experienced staff, requested many changes months later. The net effect was poor communication with passengers on timings, cancellations, and rescheduling of routes. There was poor coordination and a lack of clarity on responsibilities among GTR, the department of Transport, and Network Rail (“Office of Rail and Road,” 2018). The industry structure as it was arranged then, did not support clarity in decision-making.

Lessons Learnt

The scale of work at hand and the complexity of changes in timetables were unprecedented. This placed a timetabling team together with passenger and freight operators who were under intense pressure to deliver. Under the circumstances, the teams tried to complete the work without options to mitigate the tasks later. There was a lack of coordination and cooperation among stakeholders, which affected decision-making (“Office of Rail and Road,” 2018). GTR’s initial planning and training of drivers was inadequate in relation to the scale of the changes to the timetable. Further, GTR failed to conduct test runs for their plans before implementing the changes (“Office of Rail and Road,” 2018). Lastly, there was no sufficient contingency in place to address any challenges during the implementation of the changes. In the future, stakeholders must plan properly taking into consideration the scale of the work they intend to roll out. The plans should be drawn and piloted before actual implementation is carried out to detect and address weaknesses. All the stakeholders involved in the rail timetable changes should in the future have a well-coordinated approach with clarity on responsibilities for teams.

Summative Assessment

Background

South Western Railway’s (SWR) franchise that commenced in August ’17 included two major timetable change commitments to increased service frequencies, earlier and later trains, and extended formations. In the changes, a refurbished Class 442 EMU fleet will be introduced, enabling additional long-distance peak trains to operate and lengthening the existing services. In addition, there will be improved long-distance journey times enabled by reduced dwells, amended calling patterns, and portion working with trains splitting en-route. These proposed changes also include the introduction of newly manufactured suburban area Class 701 EMU trains using accelerated timings. Further, there will be a new method of working like train despatch providing reduced dwells; and increased passenger capacity with many 8-car suburban trains replaced by 10 car Class 701s.

These changes were proposed after witnessing a sustained period of poor performance on the intensively operated and highly infrastructure-constrained Wessex Route. There was also an assessment done on the capability of the network being undertaken by Network Rail. The report of that evaluation concluded that significant elements of these two timetable change packages could not be undertaken due to constraints within the railway system. South Western Railways (SWR) appointed a joint Train Operating Company/Infrastructure team to identify and assess the issues which are liable to block the implementation of these timetable changes. The team will then determine the optimum industry way forward for submission to the Department of Transport for approval. The task will include assessing mechanisms for evaluating risks, the parties to be involved, the interventions for issues identified, costs, limitations, dated program of activities, deliverables, and benefits of an optimum business case.

The existing Rail Network operation

Several factors combined are making it difficult to implement the timetable changes. There is the increase in the number of passengers, the poor management of train crew, the operation of longer trains, increasing numbers of speed restrictions, and aging infrastructure are some of the issues which pose challenges to the introduction of the new changes. This assessment report will analyze and each issue, the parties required to offer solutions, and how best they can be solved.

The Obsolete Timetable Structure

The existing timetable structure which SWR is using was updated last in May 2004. The number of trains running has been static since 2004 to date. Further, the public performance measure (PPM) of the trains has been on the decline and by the 2017/18 financial year, it declined to 84.3%, s drop of 9.1% since the 2010/11 financial year (Holden et al., 2018). Service groups in which SWR operates had dropped in performance by 7% for the best performance and by 15% for the worst performance in the financial year 2017/18 (Holden et al., 2018). It means the proposed timetable changes could most likely fail to have trains can run their entire planned journey, calling at all scheduled stations and arriving at their terminating station on time.

Right Time Arrival (RTA) breakdown

There has been a huge decrease in TRA performance at the franchise level from April 2011 to 2017. This goes further to give more evidence of why the new major timetable changes in the South Western route can perform at the optimum level (Holden et al., 2018). Over the years, the fall in performance has been due to low-level delays like time loss in the running. The effect of this is the fact that many trains interact have been interacting with each other in the past, and more trains suffer delays which could generate congestion in peak periods and reactionary delay enough to bring down the trains’ PPM.

Incident Count (Incidents causing attributable delay)

The incident count is a measure of the input of service-impacting on events that result in poor performance. It is, therefore, a useful measure of the underlying asset and system performance and reliability. A well-maintained, efficient, and effectively operated railway should see incident count gradually improving over time. This should be the case because of the application of continuous improvement techniques designed to eliminate repeat failures. At a bare minimum, the incident count should remain relatively static. The current state of the incident cannot support the proposed two major timetable changes by SWR, it will most likely account for the main delay if the systems are not upgraded. Along with the incident, the count is the Delay per Incident (DPI) which assesses the relative impact of every causation group in the train service at a high level. The available data points to static DPI from 2009/10 to 2015/16 (Holden et al., 2018). Pointing to what ails or has been a contributing factor to the decline in SWR performance will clearly derail the new changes.

Misalignment of incentives

The railway network is a very complex system, and so all the elements should work together effectively and efficiently for the delivery of good results in terms of operability. Even though the organizational structure of the railway industry is split between train operations and infrastructure provision, both should align their incentives together to deliver the desired services (Holden et al., 2018). Unfortunately, this is not the case for the South Western route; the Network Rail’s (NR) objectives are set and controlled by ORR, whereas SWR is set through its franchise agreement. The two objectives do not dovetail completely, especially in the performance area and the targets RN have set for its strategic business plan and those of SWR through its financial agreement are different. This has created a serious misalignment of functions and operations between them which affects the delivery of rail services.

Performance management process

The performance process which SWR inherited that is supposed to work for the franchise and jointly with NR has weaknesses. Further, both teams are not applying it effectively as of now, which has created room for poor or insufficient information to be passed to top managers and directors by the junior staff. In addition, there are no links between the Performance Delivery Group (PGD) level and the Right Time Running Hubs (RTH), which are the places where performance analysis and reviews are conducted (Holden et al., 2018). RTH is very ineffective and is not capable of making even small changes meant to improve performance. Given the variability in performance levels by PGD and RTH, it is not conducive to introducing major changes in the timetable. Basically, most of the performance data prepared for top managers and directors is backward and out of date.

Core resilience of the timetable

The decline in core time resilience of the timetable is one of the reasons why the proposed changes will not perform optimally. This has been a big issue for the franchise since 2011, way before WST took over the management of the route (Holden et al., 2018). This Wessex railway network is big and complex, so the factors critical for its functions must be integrated for it to work efficiently. The timetable must be constructed with great care, especially on junction margins, reoccupation times, terminal turnaround times, dwell and running times, and that every train can run accurately in its allocated path. Right Time Arrivals (RTA) have been showing for some time now the existence of problems with timetable resilience (Holden et al., 2018). A combination of factors has contributed to reduced timetable resilience which in turn affects the PPM performance. For example, trains running a couple of minutes late due to minor hitches are affected by a bigger attributed delay that pushes them over the five minutes late threshold and hence becomes a PPM failure.

Increasing passenger loadings over time

Passenger numbers have increased steadily over the last ten years. This has put dwell times under pressure, more so in the suburban areas and at key interchange stations such as Wimbledon, Clapham Junction, and Vauxhall. It makes the implementation of the two major timetable changes difficult (Holden et al., 2018). Proper mechanisms of expansion of the operations in terms of the station, increasing carrying capacity and improving train dispatch routes to improve passenger access and egress.

Lack of Properly Enough Trained Drivers

The current WSR professional driving policy was introduced in 2012. It came along with a philosophy of progressive increase in the impact of defensive driving behavior to reduce the risk of SPADs, and TPWS interventions. Through this, drivers are trained not to exceed the intervention speed when passing over any Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) (Holden et al., 2018). Drivers are also advised during training not to exceed 10mph over the TPWS positioned along with the platforms when approaching buffer stops. These mechanisms are meant to reduce the risks of operational safety. They are part of drivers’ mandatory training and are also reinforced on drivers’ six months of off-track briefing days, and biennial assessments (Holden et al., 2018). Over the years, the number of drivers in the system who are properly trained and with the right experience before this policy was introduced has reduced. However, the exact proportion of drivers who follow the right method of driving has increased. While the impact on trains of this policy could be small, its collective impact could be big enough to cause time in the schedule to be lost.

Operational complexity of train crew diagrams

The complexity of train crew diagrams leads to a lack of resourcing resilience and heavy dependence on a free day of working. There is a considerable variation between the required extent of the route and traction knowledge to be compliant with the base diagrams and the actual position. This gap would require about 1400 days for the crew to be up to date with the route (Holden et al., 2018). If not solved, it could put pressure on the day-to-day diagramming and rostering activities needed to post drivers on the daily timetable. This could be a huge source of operational failure when major timetable changes are implemented. Fundamentally, in cases of disruptions, much more effort would be required in place to keep track of the resources in these circumstances. The implementation of a consistent service recovery plan during and after would be impossible.

Outdated Contingency Plan

A contingency plan is very crucial for the control of train movements, and the plans in place now have not been updated since 2011. This could lead to sub-optimal decisions when responding to incidents (“Office of Rail and Road,” 2018). For instance, Raynes Park is being used to terminate trains despite the fact that it is narrower and this could lead to overcrowding when new major timetable changes are introduced. This must be reviewed in the context of the intended changes in the operations. For SWR to introduce the two major changes in the timetable, the contingency plan must be enhanced.

Intervention for the issues

NR should urgently review its attribution policies, including those linked with small minutes and unexplained delays. This will enable quick investigation and fixing of problems when they arise. On their part, SWR must undertake timetable performance simulations 2 at least two months prior to the commencement of the new timetable changes. This will create room for validation of the timetable and help them identify and learn any vital information which can be useful in the implementation of the new changes. SWR must introduce the provision of CCTV monitors to help guards with the task of dispatching trains.

Both SWR and NR must, as a matter of urgency, review their combined capability and capacity for performance analysis and management and further strengthen it before introducing new changes. To help the two align their operations and functions, the Department of Transport (DfT) must create a better alignment of performance incentives between SWR and NR (“South Western Railway,” 2018). This two being under the direct control of DfT should have their operational objectives aligned so they can deliver excellent services to the passengers. SWR should, as a priority, amend the professional driving policy for its drivers to understand the need to draw up appropriately. They must also recruit more drivers who understand the routes and are up to date with the intended changes to avoid disruptions.

NR must urgently increase the permanent speed restriction on the Main Suburban lines into and out of the station; and into and out of platforms 20 to 24, from 15mph to 20mph. They should order a new and switch rail to reduce the risk of one infrastructure failure in Waterloo (“South Western Railway,” 2018). NR and SWR should carry out minor enhancements of the infrastructure as part of business-as-usual processes in the South Western route. In the long term, NR, SWR, and DfT must cooperate to produce longer no-trains periods to facilitate improved infrastructure maintenance access.

Identifying the Optimum Business Solution

The new changes were meant to maximize the use of huge investments to improve the capacity of the South-Western Rail system. SWR should incorporate the expertise and experience of MTR, which run the busy Hong Kong metro, to deliver excellent rail transport on this network (“Department of Transport,” 2017). This will be delivered through a consistent fleet without disruptions and delays and provide more space for passengers. SWR must also deliver new car spaces, refurbished waiting rooms, and more seats for the increasing number of passengers. Further, the SWR franchise must introduce a new delay repay connection, along with delays for 15 minutes or more. The communication within NR and SWR teams must improve so that passengers can make informed decisions about their travel arrangements (“Department of Transport,” 2017). The information must be real-time on screens, trains, stations, websites, and other applications. Station staff must be updated all the time through the use of smart devices to help passengers, mostly during disruptions. In addition, SWR must make available information about seating availability and crowd levels for passengers to know the best places to board trains.

Objectives of Developing the Optimum Business Case

The changes to the timetable are aimed more successfully in eliminating the delays and disruptions and giving reliable services to the passengers. It is also expected that the proposed changes will ease the overcrowding of passengers at the stations (“BBC,” 2019). These changes will enable SWR to offer more peak services in and out of London. Changes will also come with more choices for passengers, speed up their journeys and offer increased travel frequencies. SWR and NR envision a situation where rail network performance in the southwestern route will improve (“BBC,” 2019). Thereby giving passengers value for money and satisfaction. The overall objective for the SWR franchise is the maximum revenue the new changes will generate due to increased passenger traffic on the southwestern network.

Costs of Developing the Optimum Business Case

The cost to develop the optimum business cost will involve the procurement of a new fleet of trains to meet the very growing number of passengers. The Network Rail will also need to install new signals, expand waiting rooms, install new communication gadgets, and expenses for updating the entire timetable structure. SWR franchise has among the busiest routes, operating almost 1700 services per week. There are over 230 million passengers traveling to and from London Waterloo each year (“South Western Railway,” n.d.). This network route should be upgraded to increase capacity, services, and facilities. It should take about £800 million investment to create 30% increase in space for passengers during peak hours each day (“South Western Railway,” n.d.). The work should be completed in the shortest time possible but not later than December 2018 to allow for the introduction of the timetable changes after every six months easily.

Limitations of Developing the Optimum Business Case

The investments which SWR and DfT through NR in infrastructure and specific and intensive; if this does not translate to big passenger traffic, then it will be a waste. Timetable changes cannot cure the inflexibility of train routes and timings to adjust to individual passenger needs. Even with sophistication in timetable changes, SWR will still not be able to solve the fact that trains are uneconomical for small distances and have small traffic of goods. Further, major timetable changes in the South Western route will not cure delays attributed and contributed to by natural occurrences like bad weather.

The benefit of Developing Optimum Business Case

This route is one of the busiest as it facilitates commuter, inter-urban, regional, and long-distance services in South West London and southern counties of England. It also provides linkages to the ports and airports in the United Kingdom. Its upgrading will facilitate the transportation of tourists across the region to many tourists and heritage sites (“South Western Railway,” n.d.). It will also increase access to many sporting and social events which occur along the route. Further, so many business ventures rely on this route to facilitate the movement of people’s goods and services. An efficient and excellent network with less or no disruption will generate more revenue for the British government, franchise operators, and individual private businesses. Furthermore, effective and efficient movement of passengers, goods, and services without delays will save time which is a key factor of production.

Introduction of the Class 701 Train Fleet

South Western Railway (SWR) will introduce its brand new Class 701 suburban EMUs after the issues hindering the implementation of major timetable changes are addressed in 4 months’ time. This Bombardier-built fleet will carry passengers ‘along the arteries of the suburban network to its beating heart, London Waterloo’. SWR has ordered 60×10-car and 30×5-car of class 701 and it is planning for the whole fleet to be delivered within a period of12 months (“Modern Railways,” 2020). Initially, SWR will focus on introducing 10 – car units, followed by the delivery of the majority of five-car sets later (“Modern Railways,” 2020). However, a good number of them will arrive earlier for multiple working and coupling/uncoupling training.

Infrastructure Function-Related Activities

SWR and conjunction with DfT through NR, will have to overhaul the South Western route into the digital age before the introduction of the class 701 EMU trains. These trains are very complex because they have several new features which come with the integration of new signaling technology as well. Class 701 EMU comes with the benefits of onboard Wi-Fi, at-seat charging points, real-time information screens, air-conditioning, and wide gangways. Firstly, NR will need to construct more parking spaces at all stations along the route (Mellors, 2017). There is need also to construct about 60 electric car charging points along at stations along the route.

NR and SWR will need to increase and stabilize the electricity supply along the South Western route to boost internet connectivity. This will be key in supporting real-time onscreen information to passengers and faster, more flexible, and more convenient online communication (Mellors, 2017). SWR should also overhaul its ticketing system to go digital before the new class 701 EMU is introduced. They must use maximize the use of smartcards which uses pay-as-you-go functionality for flexibility of ticketing to passengers (Mellors, 2017). Along with smartcards, SWR will have to put mechanisms in place for barcode tickets on mobile phones. SWR will also have to build a new stabilizing facility before the year ends to support the new suburban fleet.

Passengers are and will be interested in fast, quick, and convenient journeys. SWR, together with NR will have to draft shorter timetable speeds between adjacent stations. The timetable they come up with must ensure better connectivity across the network (Mellors, 2017). SWR should arrange to reduce journey time by providing a homogenous fleet of trains, where faster boarding and alighting will be achievable and thus decreasing dwell times. In addition, SWR should develop a system whereby customers as compensated promptly in cases of disruption.

Lastly, SWR will have to take their crew on a training programme for a period of 3 months before the introduction of the class 701 EMU trains. This induction will prepare the drivers, maintenance staff, guards, and other team members for changes in service performance and new traveling experiences the new fleet will bring to passengers. The drivers, maintenance staff, and depot staff must learn new skills in readiness for the introduction of class 701 EMU trains (Wordsworth, 2020). In the last two weeks of the training, the SWR train crew will have to perform a test run using one of the class 701 EMU trains on the route. This is very important to enable them to experience what the adventure will be like once the new changes take effect.

A Schedule of the Train Crew

Crew scheduling is a very important part of operation planning which assists in efficient passenger train services. The issue of scheduling has been attached to more relevance by key players in the railway industry. SWR can solve this problem through a two-stage optimization approach in the context of the electric multiple units (EMU) depot shunting driver allotment (Wang et al., 2017). Through the use of a predefined depot shunting schedule, SWR should first determine the optimal size of shunting drivers. Then they must formulate a bi-objective optimization model that allows for careful consideration of the objectives of minimizing the total walking distance and maximizing the workload balance. SWR should then combine the normalized normal constraint technique with a Pareto filter algorithm to get Pareto solutions for the bi-objective optimization issue (Wang et al., 2017). After developing the schedule using this algorithm, SWR will have to run a series of tests for its management team and crew to understand how it works.

References

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Modern railways. (2020). Southwestern railways unveils class 701 arterio EMU. Modern Railways Magazine. Web.

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Wang, J., Gronalt, M., & Sun, Y. (2017). A two-stage approach to the depot shunting driver assignment problem with workload balance considerations. US National Library of Medicine. Web.

Wordsworth, N. (2020). Wimbledon gets its first class 701 train. RailEngineer. Web.