Railway Operations and Planning

GHD was commissioned by the Grand Central Railway Company to provide Board level technical advice and analysis in the investigation and assessment of business and service options. This was to address issues and opportunities being experienced in the business.

Grand Central is an Open Access operator, and as such is completely dependent upon the revenue it can generate from operating its services. Problems in the establishment and introduction of the initial services had left the business with a high degree of uncertainty in its understanding, development and delivery of revenue. This was exacerbated by a number of corporate and commercial disputes.

The objective, which developed over time, was to establish a firmer understanding of the revenue base of the business, and from this to examine product changes and management actions which could then be evaluated and implemented to further increase revenue and support the development plans for new services.

GHD’s approach was to first establish an understanding of the revenue base and to present initial revenue forecasts to the Grand Central board, along with recommendations for change.  In addition to using the industry standard MOIRA model and GHD’s own Revenue Forecasting Model, GHD developed several models to estimate the revenue which new direct services might generate including a Passenger Choice Model to accurately predict competition.  

Multi-million pound revenue allocation and retail disputes were advanced through the industry processes, creating and using evidence to establish the basis for the presentation of cases or negotiation.  

Intelligence gained from the development of revenue forecasts and the resolution of revenue and retail disputes was used to create and enumerate business strategies to improve revenue and overall business performance, which were in turn used to establish corporate requirements to deliver a long-term sustainable business

New service opportunities on the West Coast were explored, developed and resulted in a submission to the Office of Rail Regulation for Track Access Rights.  

GHD’s revenue forecasts have been accepted and supported by Grand Central and its stakeholders. The forecasts were used as the basis to drive key business strategies and were used by the business in support of the sale of Grand Central to Arriva Trains.

GHD assisted TransLink Transit Authority (TTA) to develop and deploy a 5 year Revenue Protection Strategy for its multimodal public transport network. TTA is responsible for providing Bus, Rail and Ferry services in South East Queensland (SEQ).

Approximately 2500 buses and 200 trains are in operation daily, operated by 19 service providers. Whilst revenue risk for these services resides with TTA, revenue protection officers known as TransLink Transit Officers (TTO’s) are employed by Queensland Rail Passenger (QRP) to monitor and manage revenue evasion.

TTA are planning for both high levels of demand and to increase revenue through fare increases. A key element of this strategy is the introduction of a new Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) and go-card electronic ticketing system which will see the use of paper tickets cease by the end of 2010

GHD’s role was to: -

• Create a Revenue Protection Model (RPM) and using survey data and industry benchmarks model existing passenger flows and identify revenue leakage ‘hotspots’ by mode, origin/destination and time of day;
• Review QRP contractual performance, management, TTO’s deployment and organisational culture and client relationship management;
• Identify key business process and KPI’s;
• Assessing AFC effectiveness and recommending a capital investment model e.g. gates, handheld card reader technology and station standards;
• Using an evidence based approach, recommend a preferred Revenue Protection Strategy; and
• Assist in developing a 5 year Business Case for presentation to the TTA Board and Transport Minister Commission Experience.

GHD provided direct support in the production of Tracklube’s new management manual and supporting documentation to comply with their client requirements, enabling them to provide assurance evidence and reducing the need for client audits

The RPM was built in the UK by the GHD transport planning team, whilst the local Brisbane team worked closely with TTA gathering the requisite data and gaining a thorough understanding of the multimodal transport network, infrastructure, AFC operations, passenger behaviour and revenue protection practices. The teams were also working across two international time zones.

The adopted Revenue Protection Strategy has drawn on international best practice but been informed by local market conditions, systems and environment.

Train performance is recognised as having an important impact on customer satisfaction, however, the exact relationship between the two is not immediately obvious, with performance improvements (PPM) not always reflected in National Passenger Survey (NPS) scores.

GHD is in the process has carried out a series of studies on behalf of Passenger Focus looking into the relationship between actual train performance and customer satisfaction

Under the direction of Passenger Focus, the aim of this work is to examine how passenger satisfaction is directly affected by the punctuality experienced by each NPS respondent for the chosen TOC, and to better understand the reaction of different passenger types. A key objective was to clearly identify the underlying variables and values which resulted in the passenger satisfaction scores which were subsequently seen by the TOC. In particular, we examined: -

• Relationship Satisfaction vs. Performance (The Gradient);
• The Satisfaction ‘Tipping Point’;
• The Satisfaction for ‘Right Time’ Arrivals (The Intercept); and
• The ‘Halo’ effect.

GHD completed a series of studies on behalf of Passenger Focus looking at for NXEA (London Commuter), Northern services to/from Manchester (Non-London Commuter) and CrossCountry (Long Distance Operator) to ensure that there was an even representation of different types of TOCs.

The main challenge with this work was to align actual performance data, for which there is a vast amount over a number of years, and actual passenger survey data, of which there is considerably less.

GHD was engaged to undertake the analysis of rail access for a proposed Eco-Town development at Willow Green, east of Leeds. This analysis informed key decision makers in their consideration of Willow Green alongside other Eco-Town developments.

GHD examined the rail access considerations of the Willow Green Eco-Town development. The site is served by a local station at Whitley Bridge, but with only three trains per day, services would need to be substantially increased to support a development of the proposed size.

GHD undertook a pre-feasibility study to examine likely demand, how this would vary under different service options, operation feasibility of possible services and an estimate of the likely costs and revenues of providing these new services.

GHD’s analysis was used as part of the clients submission to the planning authority.

Forecast demand was assessed using a simplified regression analysis and the regression generated. Example timetables and rolling stock diagrams were created covering a range of options, from which demand could be compared with infrastructure changes, resource requirements and vehicle miles, and from this a net cost/benefit of each service option obtained.

Key commission challenges included: -

• Short timescale demanding simple and quick but effective analysis;
• Sourcing the required data, on which to perform the modeling; and
• Generation and interpretation of supportable results based on sound analytical judgment.