As well as the recent in-person COMET Reconnects meeting held in London in May 2022, COMET has held a variety of virtual events in the second quarter of 2022 with very active engagement from metros. These include:
Two general meetings where metros participated in:
Roundtable discussions on rolling stock management and procurement, major line and signalling upgrades and latest challenges, COVID-19 circumstances and demand forecasts;
Summary presentations on ongoing COMET studies (Fare Evasion, Digital Transformation of Rolling Stock Maintenance, Sustainability and Environmental Social Governance Strategies).
Webinar on Flood Management in Metros covering metros’ vulnerability to flooding, vulnerability assessments, stakeholder engagement, infrastructural design, operational management and lessons learned from previous flooding experiences.
Extract from Flood Management in Metros Webinar (held July 2022)
Upcoming events include webinars on Key Performance Indicators and Customer Satisfaction Survey Results, and Customer Assistance in Low Staff Environments. The current list of COMET members is here.
The Transport Strategy Centre (TSC) is delighted to be hosting the first in person Community of Metros (COMET) meeting since 2019 that we’ve called “COMET Reconnects”, taking place from 25-27th May 2022 in London.
We are proud to be hosting the meeting across a number of Imperial College London venues during the week, including the South Kensington Campus and the brand new White City campus which is a world-class facility focusing on innovation, entrepreneurship, and multidisciplinary research. More about Imperial College London’s White City campus can be found here.
COMET is 44 metros in 40 cities worldwide participating in an annual programme of benchmarking and knowledge sharing across a number of dimensions fundamental to metro management and operations. 20 metros from the group are in London this week, visiting the Transport for London network including the brand new Elizabeth Line, and participating in meetings centred around strategic priorities and structured discussion. Our full virtual events programme for COMET members is running this year alongside this in-person meeting.
Follow the Transport Strategy Centre’s LinkedIn page here for more updates on COMET Reconnects and on the wider work of the TSC. More detail on the TSC can be found on our website here.
COMET has held two webinars in February and March 2022 on the topics of Efficient Maintenance and Inspections, and Sustainable Fares and Funding.
COMET originally aimed to study the efficiency of maintenance and inspections pre-pandemic in 2019. The aim of the study is to explore the resources metros spend on maintenance and inspections in more granular detail than has been previously possible, as well as the factors influencing their maintenance and inspection regimes. 40 metros attended the webinar with supporting presentations from Nanjing Metro and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) in San Francisco.
Extract from Efficient Maintenance and Inspections webinar
In March, the Sustainable Fares and Funding webinar took place with 32 metros in attendance. Financial benchmarking of metros, fares and funding continue to be longstanding areas of research and interest in COMET. Revenue from fares is the largest source of income for metros. Increasingly, uncertainty over demand caused by COVID-19 and cost pressures worldwide highlight the importance of a predictable, stable fare regime. The webinar included presentation and discussion of fare structures, fare levels, and concessionary fares, as well as long-term capital planning and funding considerations for metros.
Following a ten-year tradition of including a CEO/COO Day as part of the Annual Meeting, this year’s sessions were held virtually due to COVID-19. All 41 member organisations joined the COMET CEO/COO Sessions on 25th March 2021. Metro executives discussed shared challenges and issues of strategic importance for metros with global peers during the two sessions for Eastern and Western time zones.
Highlights of pre-COVID metro KPI performance and future implications were presented, along with two thematic discussions on Future Demand and Improving Resilience. Metro executives also heard highlight presentations from Hong Kong MTR and Berlin BVG sharing their perspectives and good practices in preparing for the new normal.
During the open discussion, metro executives exchanged experiences on key issues such as working with other stakeholders on policies supporting metros, opportunities to increase financial resiliency, competition between other public transport modes, etc.
COMET meetings have been held virtually since April 2020! Due to COVID-19, all in-person meetings were moved online, with four types of virtual events: general meetings, regional meetings, study/KPI webinars, and expert workshops (focused on COVID-19).
Quarterly General Meetings were held in April, July, and October 2020 to partially replace the benchmarking group meetings, keeping metros informed on member latest developments and benchmarking work and business. The first regional virtual meeting was a Chinese-Speaking Metros Meeting in September, the first meeting in COMET history to have segments conducted directly in Mandarin (with consecutive translation for other parts). This meeting focused on regional benchmarking results and issues of local interest.
Two webinars on the topics of Noise and Vibration (September 2020) and KPI benchmarking (December 2020) reached a wider audience in metros. Finally, in response to COVID-19, two workshops on Planning to Restore Metro Operations (June 2020) and Funding and Financing (November 2020) were held for metros to share experiences and to discuss COMET research this year relating to COVID-19.
A full calendar of virtual events is planned for 2021.
Sixteen members of CoMET and three members of Nova joined the CoMET Annual Meeting hosted by Paris RATP from 11th – 15th November 2019. During the meeting, members heard the latest updates from each metro as well as the case study presentations on Managing and Reducing Absenteeism, Station Staffing Models, and Managing Works Affecting Revenue Service.
Four structured discussion sessions were held in the CEO/COO day: Ridership Trends, Metro Reliability, Workforces for the Future, and Digital Transformation of Metros. Several metros delivered presentations to share their good practices.
The technical visit brought members to Châtelet Metro and RER Station as well as the control centre for RER Line A and Line B. After the meeting, members also had the opportunity to visit the Line 14 Extension Project, Line 14 Operational Control Centre, Line 4 Automation Project, and General Control Centre for all modes (metro, tram, bus, RER).
16 members of Nova and two members of CoMET met in Barcelona from 24th – 27th September 2019 for the Nova Phase 22 Management Meeting, hosted by Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona.
During the week, members heard presentations from across the CoMET and Nova Key Performance Indicators Balanced Scorecard, as well as study presentations on Reliability of Signalling Equipment, Modern Maintenance Practices and Energy Saving Strategies. Members also exchanged their latest activities, challenges and initiatives during meeting sessions.
The annual Management Meeting is where the upcoming Nova work programme is determined by the members. The next phase’s work programme will consist of three studies on the topics of preventative actions to avoid human-related failures in train operation and in the Operational Control Centre (OCC), innovations to reduce track time to do capital and maintenance works, and customer experience in stations.
Members also had the opportunity to use TMB’s metro network extensively, and visited Line 10’s ZAL depot to learn about how TMB carries out engineering and maintenance.
The Nova metro benchmarking group convened in Vancouver, Canada for the Phase 21 Annual Meeting. British Columbia Rapid Transit Company (BCRTC) welcomed 13 metros from around the world from 13th-16th May, including Mexico City STC visiting from Nova’s sister group CoMET. Members were welcomed to the meeting by Kevin Desmond, CEO of BCRTC’s parent organisation TransLink, and Haydn Acheson, CEO at BCRTC.
On Monday 13th May, the North American members of Nova convened to discuss issues of critical importance in the region, notably equity and outreach initiatives, automation and experiences with Public Private Partnerships (PPPs or P3s), and maintenance organisational structures.
The full international group convened from 14th-16th May to hear the latest benchmarking information from the Transport Strategy Centre (TSC) at Imperial College London and to participate in peer-to-peer discussion. Studies presented at the meeting by the TSC included Passenger Incident Management, Managing and Reducing Absenteeism, Employee Engagement, and Planning and Scheduling Works Affecting Revenue Service, as well as a Key Performance Indicators and Safety Performance Indicators presentation. Members also discussed topics of strategic importance to metros, such as future revenue streams and managing passenger flow.
BCRTC’s SkyTrain system is a fully driverless network and Nova benchmarking incorporates data from the Expo and Millennium Lines.
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.
The Nova benchmarking group convened in Montréal, Canada for the Phase 21 Management Meeting on 1st – 4th October 2018. Société de transport de Montréal (STM) hosted the meeting, with 15 members in attendance, including one of the newest members of the Community of Metros, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Chairman of the Board Mr. Philippe Schnobb welcomed the group to Montréal and presented an overview of public transport operations at STM. The group also learned about the latest changes to public transport governance in Montréal.
During Nova Management Meetings, members develop the work programme for the upcoming phase. The topics selected for study in Phase 21 were absenteeism, signalling reliability, employee engagement and managing works during revenue service. The Railway and Transport Strategy Centre (RTSC) also presented the first Key Performance Indicator and Safety Performance Indicator results using 2017 data, as well as case studies on Escalator Management and Station Design Guidelines and Passenger Flow Monitoring. Results from the 2018 Customer Satisfaction Survey were also presented. Each of the 15 attending metros presented an update to the group about their metro’s activities and challenges over the past six months.
During the week, members had the opportunity to see STM’s facilities, including its new AZUR trains and bespoke train simulator; “Espace Client” customer service centre; and the Youville workshop, which is the largest metro maintenance facility operated by STM, handling the maintenance for its MR-73 and AZUR rolling stock.
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