17 members of the Community of Metros gathered in Sao Paulo for the CoMET 2018 Annual Meeting. The meeting was held 5th – 8th November, hosted by Metro São Paulo, which is celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2018. Members were warmly received by the Secretary of Metropolitan Transport for the State of São Paulo, Clodoaldo Pelissioni, and by Metro São Paulo President, Paulo Menezes Figueiredo.
During meeting sessions, members heard the latest results from the annual work programme of Key Performance Indicators benchmarking, spanning metro performance across six areas including financial, safety and environmental benchmarking. New case study research undertaken for the 2018 work programme was also presented, covering Modern Maintenance Practices, Optimisation of Train Availability, and Passenger Incident Management.
Throughout the meeting, each metro also presented their latest news, including their recent activities, challenges, and achievements over the past 6-7 months. The CoMET group heard from three visiting Nova metros throughout the week: Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona, Metrovías (Buenos Aires) and MetrôRio.
On 8th November, the CoMET Annual CEO/COO Day was held, welcoming metro leadership to discuss issues of strategic importance. Three topics were selected across financial, environmental and operational business areas, discussing future revenue streams, climate change and extreme weather events, and passenger flow management. A variety of metros participated and led each session, with support from the Railway and Transport Strategy Centre (RTSC) providing the latest group benchmarking relating to the topic.
Throughout the event, members were able to learn about the city of São Paulo and Metro São Paulo’s network through technical visits and using the system. Members visited the Jabaquara depot, serving Line 1-Blue, and saw how trains are prepared for service, corrective and preventative maintenance procedures, equipment and component tuning and testing, component maintenance, warehousing and logistics, and the on-site training centre. During a second technical visit, members visited Sé station, the most crowded station on Metro São Paulo’s network. The station is an interchange for Line 1 – Blue and Line 3 – Red, with around 600,000 passenger passing through this station every weekday. Members were also welcomed to the launching ceremony of the “Estação Memória” (Memory Station) stand in Sé station, an interactive cultural exhibit celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Metro São Paulo.