Community of Metros Research – Page 5 – Community of Metros Benchmarking Group

Research: Managing and Reducing Absenteeism

March 16, 2021November 4, 2019

Absenteeism presents widespread impacts of loss of productivity, delays and reduced morale that would affect metros’ efficiency and reliability. Currently CoMET and Nova have an average staff absenteeism rate of 4.7% (based on 2018 data), creating significant challenges for managing service provision. This study investigated levels of absenteeism at CoMET and Nova metros, identified and explored underlying causes of absenteeism, and discussed best practices to manage and/or reduce absenteeism. In discussing the factors that metros have identified that lead to absence, it is clear that absenteeism does not have one single cause and is influenced by multiple internal and external factors. It therefore requires a comprehensive set of solutions to manage and reduce.

Approaches and actions to manage and reduce absenteeism focus on measurement and management of absence data and positive approaches to employee relations. Initiatives within these categories help ensure that metros understand the scale of the issue across different organisational parameters (such as absenteeism rates by team) as well as developing an overall culture of care and trust between management and labour.

Research: Employee Engagement

November 5, 2020October 3, 2019

This study investigated which metros undertake employee engagement initiatives and the range of approaches used, and the initiatives metros have used to improve employee engagement. CoMET and Nova metros range in organisational size from around 1000 employees to over 40,000 in some cases. Highly engaged employees are likely to understand how the organisation works and is governed, understand the mission, values and behaviours of the metro and understand the organisational culture. Importantly, engagement is not the same as satisfaction (although this is one aspect of engagement).

The majority of CoMET and Nova metros measure employee engagement using a single methodology for all employees. The frequency of measuring employee engagement varied, with more frequent surveys allowing for targeted questioning, while less frequent surveys allow recognition of changes in organisational culture. A number of initiatives for employee engagement measurement and improvement were identified in this study that metros have deployed or are planning to deploy. These initiatives span communications between staff and with leadership, performance management and recognition programmes, working conditions and staff facilities, health and wellbeing, financial benefits and benefits-in-kind, events, and safety at work.

Research: Planning and Scheduling Work Affecting Revenue Service

November 5, 2020September 3, 2019

All metros must carry out work to enable continued operations and to ensure safety and reliability. These works include not only routine maintenance (which occurs on an ongoing basis) but also periodic work to renew, upgrade, or even replace assets. While every effort is made to conduct these works outside of revenue service hours (during the few overnight engineering hours that most metros have), the volume and scale of some works ultimately require more extensive closures that impact revenue service. This study investigated how metros design work plans, manage and govern track access, and communicate work to customers.

Approximately half of responding metros allow work to impact revenue service, and with increasing demand and ageing infrastructure this seems likely to increase in the future. In general, metros are using three key criteria to determine whether a project should be allowed to affect revenue service: whether the disruption is unavoidable, how urgent the work is, and whether alternative transport can cope with the added demand. In terms of service design during work, selecting the right service strategy is not straightforward. Metros need to balance the impacts of different approaches on operations (e.g. resource needs), maintenance, customer service, and revenues. Finally, in terms of communicating service information, social media is a primary form of communication with customers now, but a mix of channels is still needed to ensure that metros’ diverse audiences are reached.

Research: Modern Maintenance Practices

August 16, 2019March 16, 2019

Technological advances have created the opportunity to transform maintenance practices to develop cost-efficient infrastructure management and improved system performance with regard to safety and reliability. To consider balance between preventive and corrective maintenance for managing track, switches and crossings, and civil structures, the study looked into what the optimal balance should be. Incorporating flexibility and slack into maintenance plans and focusing on dealing with the constraints of staff scheduling and limited track access, are strategies to increase the proportion of preventive works.

By analysing time-use during track access, the study identified major causal factors for lost time during possession to be travel and preparation. Therefore the strategies used by metros to reduce lost time were outlined in the study. The study also looked at key factors that influence maintenance costs, as well as examined metros’ outsourcing strategies.

Automation was seen to reduce the volume of labour necessary, particularly in labour intensive activities such as on-foot inspections. Three main areas of future maintenance practices with potential were identified: better data, improved maintenance practices, and renewals. Good practices in these areas were listed as examples in the report.

Research: Metro Security

August 19, 2019March 2, 2019

Trends concerning crime were found to be highly regionalised both for types of crimes committed (against person, property etc.) and evolution. Over the period from 2012 to 2017, the rate of crimes across CoMET and Nova metros is decreasing for 65%, with the largest decreases occurring primarily at Asian metros that already have very low crime levels.

(Am – American Metro, As – Asian Metro, Eu – European Metro)

Patrols and CCTV are ubiquitous means of surveillance though they have different secondary benefits. Nearly all metros reported that security staff are multifunctional and can respond to customer queries as well as providing crowd control and passenger assistance. This is also typically complemented by station staff notifying security of issues and monitoring CCTV.

Technological advances were identified as key drivers of change within metro security both to inform strategies and to monitor crime. The key areas where advanced technology for security are developing include passenger screening, smart cameras, the use of apps, and the provision of enhanced infrastructure (such as 5G networks).

Research: Passenger Incident Management

August 19, 2019February 19, 2019

On average for CoMET and Nova metros, passengers contribute to 17% of all incidents causing delays of five minutes or more. The causes of passenger incidents range from suicide, vandalism, passenger taking ill, etc. The breakdown of passenger related incidents by cause and by delay threshold shows although the frequency of suicides is very low, those incidents take the longest to resolve.

As well as detailed benchmarking of the passenger-related causes and impacts of incidents at metros, the case study outlined metros’ best practices in passenger incident management, including a data-driven approach in analysing passenger incident impacts, effective incident response by a clear chain of command, high levels of coordination with the emergency services, clear and consistent communications and procedures, appropriate staffing models and regular training with a focus on learning from past incidents.

Research: Optimisation of Train Availability

August 19, 2019January 10, 2019

In 2017, the average peak hour train availability was 88% for all CoMET and Nova members. Main causes of train unavailability were planned preventive maintenance, unplanned corrective maintenance, refurbishments and major damages. The biggest constraint to train availability is related to train reliability issues, specifically train failures occurring outside of peak hours which cannot be repaired in time.

The study foucused on the four maintenance and operational approaches that are utilised by metros to optimise train availability: allocation of train maintenance, outsourcing train maintenance, flexibility in operations, and introduction of remote condition monitoring.

Metros’ biggest successes or their future plans in terms of improving train availability are related to optimisation of maintenance work to improve reliability, train refurbishment plans, and introduction of remote condition monitoring on trains.

Research: Escalator Management

August 19, 2019December 19, 2018

The three-part scope of this case study covered escalator availability, safety and asset management. Firstly, the study explored definitions and targets for escalator availability and identify causes of, and solutions to, unavailability. Secondly, it identified low-cost practices to improve safety. Finally the study benchmarked escalator asset lives and the nature of maintenance interventions during the lifecycle.

Long-term actions that metros have taken to improve escalator availability are the operational and maintenance practices either to reduce failures from occurring or to restore availability as quickly as possible after escalators go out of service. This involves proactive maintenance work to ensure that escalators are in good condition during passenger service hours, and working with maintainers to optimise their response and supply chain.

Regarding escalator asset management, it is important to adopt a whole-life approach and assess maintenance approaches on this basis, considering the annualised cost of ownership, whole-life unavailability caused by maintenance, the scope and frequency of maintenance interventions throughout the lifecycle, and the customer-facing unavailability caused by maintenance.

Research: Enhancing Platform Safety without Platform Doors

August 19, 2019November 23, 2018

The highest risk area to passenger safety within metro systems is upon entering the track area with an average of one track intrusion per million passenger journeys across CoMET/Nova metros. Platform Doors (PD) remove this risk but their cost, complexity of planning and installation, station design and other challenges constrain their wide-spread installation: 70% of CoMET and Nova members have no or low PD coverage. For many metros, PDs come at the expense of other critical infrastructure projects. This case study explored the best practice on managing platform safety risk without the use of PDs.

On average, 65% of track intrusions for respondent metros are intentional customer actions, requiring mitigation measures to instil a behavioural change. Classified as passive prevention measures, these consist of platform announcements and reminders, poster campaigns and platform-edge markings or lighting.

Beyond these, the study identified active detection methods enacted by staff members or detection and response technologies. Combining Smart CCTV, lasers and microwave frequency was successfully piloted as a means to detecting the presence of any person or object on the track. The use of these technologies has proven effective to increase safety in the absence of PDs.

Research: Best Practices in Operating UTO Lines

August 19, 2019June 20, 2018

In 2016, fifteen CoMET and Nova metros have experience in planning or operating automated lines. This study identified good practices in operating fully automated metro lines, known as Unattended Train Operation (UTO) lines. The majority of UTO lines are GoA4 and this trend is projected to continue, with a sharp increase in UTO lines planned for the next 10 years. Given this rapid adoption of UTO, this study was selected by CoMET and Nova members to identify how best to prepare for and eventually operate driverless trains.

The study identified a number of metros good and emerging practices for operating UTO lines from preparation stages to operation. Testing periods for UTO lines, for example, are carried out at three different levels: testing of components, of systems and of whole lines. Following this period, metros may assign on-board staff for fast response to potential service instabilities and passenger assistance. Ultimately for GoA4 lines, incidents are dealt with remotely, managed in practice by the OCCs. This requires a shift in practice from frontline to remote problem-solving. Also, the study determined that whilst UTO lines are generally more reliable, incident management can become a bigger challenge than with conventional lines.