TSC News – Page 3 – Community of Metros Benchmarking Group

Community of Metros News: First North American Sub-Group Meeting Held in Washington DC

June 15, 2018January 31, 2018

The North American Sub-Group of the Community of Metros has officially been formed and its inaugural meeting held in Washington DC. The North American Sub-Group brings together metro operators in North America to collaborate on benchmarking and focus on challenges particularly affecting operators in the region. The group consists of existing Community of Metros members New York City Transit, Société de Transport de Montréal, Toronto Transit Commission and Vancouver SkyTrain, as well as new members of the community, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) and Bay Area Rapid Transit (San Francisco).

During this meeting, members heard benchmarking analysis with a focus on North America, and case studies of particular relevance including Measuring and Improving Customer Satisfaction and Best Practices in Driver Training. Members also participated in structured discussions on key topics of interest for North American metro operators, such as managing reliability, ridership trends and using performance data.

WMATA Chief Operating Officer Joe Leader explains WMATA’s rolling stock replacement programme

Members used WMATA’s network extensively, learning about station operational procedures and plans for future station works. The group also visited WMATA’s Greenbelt Yard facility to learn about its rolling stock replacement programme, including the logistics of the depot and customer-focused design elements of the trains. Its new 7000-series cars total 45% of its fleet and is reducing fleet-related delays.

“The Operator’s Story” at the OECD International Transport Forum, Leipzig

June 15, 2018June 15, 2017

Richard Anderson, Professor Dan Graham, Dr. Roger Allport and Priya Wells attended the 2017 OECD International Transport Forum to bring the ongoing “Operator’s Story” research project to industry experts and policymakers from around the world. The RTSC team were joined by Dominic Patella, Senior Transportation Specialist at the World Bank, and an expert panel made up of Dr Jacob Kam of Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway, Ismael Uruen Pueyo of Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona and Professor Tony Ridley of Imperial College London.

“The Operator’s Story” is an applied research project aiming to capture and document what makes metros successful from the Operator’s point of view, a perspective that has been little explored. 10 members of the Community of Metros participated in in-depth case studies for the research, providing insight into their governance structures, operational opportunities and constraints, and relationships with stakeholders. These findings have been combined with long-term metro benchmarking to present a set of initiatives that actively improve metro success, for application to existing and new metro systems alike.

Examples of external factors affecting metro operators

Richard Anderson, Roger Allport and Dominic Patella presented the emerging findings of the research, focusing on the increasing trend towards urbanisation and the use of metro rail as a solution to promote sustainable growth. Roger Allport presented key insights from the in-depth case studies, focusing on strategic and governance practices. Using best practice insight from the Community of Metros, Richard Anderson presented some of the key operational principles of metro development.

Ismael Uruen Pueyo (Director of Economic and Finance, Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona) during the panel discussion

Following the presentation, questions were fielded from the audience to the presenters and expert panel. The questions were diverse, covering the setup of metros to successfully transition between engineering, operations and management, managing service levels during constrained funding periods and recruiting expertise for metros.

“The Operator’s Story” team in Leipzig from the World Bank, RTSC at Imperial College London and Community of Metros

“The Operator’s Story” team would like to thank the OECD International Transport Forum for hosting this first session into the research findings, as well as the members of the expert panel who provided valuable insight into how the research findings apply in real-world situations.

A report presenting “The Operator’s Story” Emerging Findings can be found here.

RTSC presents big data research to President Xi Jinping

December 1, 2015December 1, 2015

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Imperial College London on the 21st October. As a result of a collaboration between the RTSC, Shanghai Metro, and the Data Science Institute (DSI) of Imperial, the Presidential visit included a presentation on the analysis of smartcard data for the Shanghai Metro network.

Our main research objective was to improve our understanding of demand patterns captured in smartcard data. We visualised passenger flows entering and exiting Shanghai metro stations using the extraordinary visualisation capabilities of the KPMG Data Observatory of DSI. The Data Observatory is the largest of its kind in Europe, featuring an enveloping circular wall of 64 monitors powered by 32 computers facilitating 313 degrees of surround vision.

In the second part of the presentation we visualised a simulation scenario for a hypothetical train service disruption. This allowed us to predict how temporary demand shocks would spread through other parts of the network. Studying disruption scenarios enables operators to prepare for unexpected events and improve the resilience of urban rail networks.

The Presidential visit proved to be an excellent opportunity to showcase the RTSC’s recently developed competences in big data analysis, and the potential of smart card data in cutting edge public transport research.

RTSC shares expertise with senior public officials from India

November 25, 2015November 3, 2015

RTSC was honoured in October 2015 to host a study visit from a delegation of senior officials responsible for metro and urban transport development in India. Participating officials represented the Ministry of Urban Development, the Department of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance, Nagpur Metro Rail Corporation Ltd., and the World Bank.

The visit incorporated a benchmarking workshop, looking at how benchmarking could benefit the new and rapidly-developing metros of India. The visit also included seminars disseminating RTSC’s 20 years of expertise on topics including metro financial sustainability, innovative funding and financing mechanisms, and best practice in regulation of metro operations. In addition, the delegates had the opportunity to see visualisations of RTSC analysis of passenger movements in the Shanghai Metro at Imperial College’s newly-opened Data Science Institute.

The delegation visited Manchester Metrolink, London Underground, and Crossrail – and had the opportunity to discuss these different transport systems and projects in detail with current and former staff, learning from the operator’s experience of what works well in setting up successful urban rail operations.