Nova members have identified a need to innovate to increase staff productivity levels, and asked RTSC to investigate how metros around the world have used multifunctional staff. A wide variety of multifunctional roles were identified, classified into six broad types as shown below.
The best multifunctional staff roles fill in what would otherwise be unproductive time, with productive activity. This is often accomplished by matching functions that need to be done at separate times of day or functions that can be slotted in between other activities in a single location, such as light maintenance within stations.
Multifunctional working also has an important role at increasing staff satisfaction. By combining tasks, staff have the opportunity to work in a more varied and interesting role. This can improve the attractiveness of the metro as an employer and improve staff motivation. For example, one metro recorded reduced absenteeism among their most multifunctional staff. Multifunctional roles can also create a career progression – especially for staff who are technically excellent but do not necessarily want to manage other people.
Service performance measurements are crucial for understanding how metro services are running, so obtaining and leveraging accurate data in the form of useful metrics is key to improving performance. This research project aimed to understand what metrics metros are using to manage their service performance, including their precise definitions, and what methods they use to obtain the required data.
Five categories of service performance measurements help to answer the most important management questions about service performance. A comprehensive system of KPIs needs to comprise a balanced set of service performance measurements covering all five categories.
What do metro managers need to know?
There is a need to measure both the actual delay to train service and the impacts of train delays on customers. Too much emphasis on the measurement of train service production and train service performance can be at the expense of other elements of service quality and the actual customer experience. One achievable approach is to use headway-based measurements, which reflect the waiting time for customers on platforms. Another is to weight delay measurements by the number of customers on the train at the time.
There is a clear trend towards more customer-focused measures, which are more difficult to measure but better reflect the actual customer experience. This trend is being driven primarily by technology, such as modern signalling/train control systems and smartcards (i.e. tap-in / tap-out systems). These new data sources are making it easier for metros to collect the data required for more customer-focused metrics.
Trends in service performance data collection, management and analysis
This research project examined metros’ practices when making the decision of whether to replace or refurbish ageing rolling stock. As annualised expenditure on rolling stock is typically about 20-25% of total operating costs, fleet investment decisions have significant impacts on overall metro costs. The focus of the study was to identify key factors and criteria in deciding to replace or refurbish rolling stock at end of nominal life, including the risks and opportunities of life extension beyond initial design life; to identify best practices in design, specification and planning of refurbishments; and to advise metros on appraisal and business case development process, parameters and assumptions.
Metros have been gaining increasingly significant benefits through refurbishment, and many metros (especially newer ones) are now undertaking or planning refurbishments to ageing fleets that are approaching or past their initial design lives. These refurbishment programmes are designed to extend initial design lives by as much as 15-20 years.
Cost saving opportunities of refurbishment
A key guiding principle is that refurbishment prolongs ‘more of the same’, as reliability following refurbishment tends to remain fairly similar. Therefore, only highly reliable fleets are usually worth refurbishing. A second principle is that most metros limit the extent of technology change attempted through refurbishment. So if significant upgrade is required, for example to enable unattended train operations, generally a new vehicle is preferred.
This case study has successfully assisted CoMET and Nova members in their decision-making. An Asian member needed to buy new trains when their 15-year-old line was extended and re-signalled. Findings from this report assisted with their decision to replace all the trains on the lines, instead of converting the older trains to work with newer signalling and then operating a mixed fleet. Conversely, Montréal STM used this research in support of a decision to refurbish their 40-year-old MR-73 cars and extend their life to 60 years. This is projected to save Quebec taxpayers nearly $500 million over the next 20 years. More information on Montréal’s decision can be found here.
For most metros, a steadily growing passenger demand and revenue is important for future sustainability. This 2014 Nova case study captured good practice initiatives that members have implemented in their metros to increase the revenue they receive. This study also looked at how the regulatory and political environment affects a metro’s ability to implement these strategies and what methods were being used to measure and forecast demand.
Several of the factors that influence metro demand and revenue are to some extent within a metro’s influence, such as the quality of service, the provision of amenities within stations, and price. However, external factors tend to have the largest impact on demand and there is little metros can do to influence these, at least in the short to medium term.
Factors (Within and Outside Metro Control) Influencing Metro Demand
Members stated that fares policy, service frequency and capacity, infrastructure enhancements, and integration with other transport had the greatest impact on their demand and revenue. Yet, they also appear to be the factors that metro operators have the least control over. We argue that in the longer term, these factors can be strongly influenced by metros but clear and proactive engagement with all city actors such as the Transport Authority or Government is required.
Good practice metros undertake a detailed analysis of their market segments to understand both existing and potential customers. Separating out different customer segments and journey stages may enable operators to exploit previously un-tapped or poorly captured markets. Metro operators should conduct proper advance business case analysis to understand the overall expected revenue impacts and associated costs of proposed demand growth initiatives. Even if forecasting or modelling demand and revenue is done by the transport authority, metros can always benefit from having their own models. This enables metros to make a stronger case to the transport authority about the effects of a particular action.
The most effective strategies implemented by metros included:
Bus feeder and bus integration systems which complement metro services and improve access to the metro;
Short extensions, infill stations and station upgrades that provide strategic opportunities to improve access to new markets,
Increasing off-peak service provision (evening, weekend and inter-peak) at low marginal cost to open the metro up to new or underutilised markets;
Targeted fares products to encourage off-peak travel and fill underutilised capacity; and
Integrated ticketing platforms and joint promotion that attracts alternative markets.
Public transport is essential to the success and feasibility of major events, and most major cities with metros are likely to host at least one large-scale event over a 15-year horizon. A 2014 Nova case study captured members’ experience with hosting a wide range of events and covered the entire timeline of hosting a major event, as illustrated below.
Metro Timeline for Hosting a Major Event – from upfront activities to lessons learned
The study found that early and active involvement in major event planning – which can include major capital projects – is very beneficial for metros, as is conducting their own demand forecasting. The long lead-time for most major events also allows for metros to learn from each other and visit metros hosting the same or similar events. Despite the short-term nature of most major events, metros gain the most value from retaining longer-term improvements, whether transformational or incremental.
The study demonstrated that while major events can present challenges to metros, many metros are using them successfully as opportunities to showcase their existing good practices, experiment with new ones, identify needs, and leverage funding.
Passenger communications have undergone a revolution in the last decade, with more channels allowing passengers and the metro to pass information to one another, and amongst themselves as illustrated in the figure below. A CoMET 2013 case study explored the rapidly changing face of metro-passenger communications, and highlighted how technological developments are altering the nature of the relationship between metros and their passengers.
Passenger communications channels now – many and varied, with bi-directional information flow
The study identified successful methods for delivering non-travel information, increasing passenger engagement and identifying opportunities for the future. Selected good practices were identified based on the best examples within CoMET of:
influencing passenger behaviour (including the use of the British Government’s MINDSPACE principles)
creating website journey planners and
responding to comments and questions on social media.
The work demonstrated how best practice metros are taking advantage of burgeoning opportunities to open up their operations and organisations, communicating with passengers more widely and building better relationships than ever before.
RTSC’s recent research into unattended train operations (UTO) has investigated the role of human operational support on UTO lines. In doing so, a key finding relates to the use of attendants or train captains – metro staff members who are based in the passenger car, rather than in a separate driver’s cab. Formal definitions of Grades of Automation as in IEC-62290 assume that if a staff member is onboard, they are fulfilling a necessary role, in operating the train, as in London’s Docklands Light Railway where attendants close the doors. The assumption is therefore that lines capable of being operated unattended (Grade of Automation 4) are operated unattended. This research study has found that in fact some metros with GoA4 lines actually use attendants on all trains for other reasons, for example to provide customer service. This has led RTSC to describe this type of line as ‘Attended GoA4,’ reflecting the fact that it fits the specification for a GoA4 line as described in IEC-62290, but is not being operated unattended. The diagram below illustrates how ‘Attended GoA4’ automation fits in with the grades of automation.
Adapted from IEC-62290 for the purposes of demonstrating differences in the real-world operational application of the formal Grades of Automation (GoA1-4) defined in the standard.
The case study explored in more detail the actual staffing levels used or planned on participating metros’ automatic lines. The total number of operational staff was compared with the number of assets (stations and trains) in service, providing metros with a useful benchmarking metric that normalised for differences in line length and service level. A typology of staffing models was also developed and linked with associated staffing levels. This work on staffing was complemented by investigation into the technologies required to enable automation; their costs; and metros experiences with their reliability.
This research was presented as a poster at the 94th Transportation Research Board of the National Academies Annual Meeting in Washington DC, in 2015.
A Nova research project examined how metros manage their asset information and what systems and applications are used to achieve this. The study identified eight key asset information management (AIM) ‘maturity factors’ adopted by good practice metros. These factors were used to compare the combined effects of each metro’s asset information management, systems and applications. The results were then analysed to begin to understand the reasons behind and paths toward maturity.
Management and control of asset information are more important than the system used
The study’s key finding is that a metro’s asset information system (AIS) cannot itself manage asset information – it should support a metro’s overall AIM strategy. An AIS itself and the associated technologies are secondary to the need to structure and manage asset information to match the requirements of the business and its users.
Some Nova and CoMET metros have forged ahead and are developing mature approaches that are using the new technology based on good information standards, with sound system management that is based around users and a culture of continuous improvement.
Following the success of the CoMET 2011 case study on Improving Incident Response and Recovery, a drill-down study was proposed to understand some of the best practices identified in more detail. The drill-down study added to the detailed incident data collected in Phase 1 and completed a more disaggregated analysis of the data, looking at detailed causes and the durations associated with incidents of different causes. An area of particular interest to the case study sponsors was the organisation of incident management, and here the ‘strategic-tactical-operational’ (gold-silver-bronze) structure adopted in two European metros was recommended. The sponsoring metro has since contacted these metros to learn more about this structure.
A crucial part of this Phase 2 study was a workshop, bringing together incident response experts from ten CoMET and Nova metros, as well as two members of CoMET and Nova’s sister benchmarking group for suburban railways, ISBeRG. This workshop resulted in the development of 14 ‘golden rules’ for incident response and recovery, which provide clear and concise guidance to metros and have since been adopted by a European metro. Similarly, an American metro is implementing best practices from the case study in resource distribution, infrastructure maintenance, and emergency response. A key recommendation arising from the workshop was the use of ‘hot debriefs’ to ask staff how the management of an incident could have been improved, immediately after the event; this good practice has since been taken on by a European metro.
A Nova research study on train driver productivity aimed to identify the most important factors that influence driver efficiency, understand what methods operators have successfully used to modernise restrictions to working arrangements and identify the scope for metros to modify the most important constraints, rules and parameters that have a negative effect on both driver productivity and costs.
The study found that metros need to have sufficiently flexible labour rules to achieve higher levels of driver productivity. Correlating the level of working time flexibility with driver productivity showed that less restricted metros were more productive than metros that face stricter constraints. Organisations with part time drivers and / or the ability to utilise split shifts were associated with higher levels of driver productivity and increased effectiveness of driver time at work (better able to cover ‘peaks and troughs’ in service). Moreover, it was found that variable shift lengths were arguably more effective than split shifts for metros with a flatter service profile, allowing metro managers to adjust shift schedules as necessary and to avoid the build up (unproductive time) of staff during less busy and off peak periods. In the long term, savings from increased flexibility could more than offset the higher driver wages associated with greater flexibility. Increasing automation of train services through automatic train turnaround, remote booking-on for drivers and driverless trains can positively influence driver productivity and allow driver roles to be deployed more effectively through more customer facing roles.
It is hoped that the information contained within this study can be used to support negotiations with labour unions, government and other key stakeholders by showing evidence of how “imposed” restrictions may impact an organisation’s ability to improve and manage productivity.
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