LUL Good Practise Workshop June 2010

Following member feedback, IRO South East have developed a series of ‘Good Practice’ workshops, aimed at members wishing to develop their knowledge and skills.

At the first event, held this summer, London Underground’s Tracey Bellis introduced the good work that they have been doing with a presentation of the standards they have established and why there was a need for them.

A key stage in the process of re-invigorating the customer culture of LUL was the changing of the focus of the Network Operations Centre (previously Network Control Centre). Prior to 2003, it’s primary role was to support the Line of Route Controls as a centrally focused control room through dissemination of information regarding revenue functions, e.g. closure of ticket offices.

So what was the catalyst for change? On 28th August 2003 there was a major power outage across the LUL network leading to a number of stalled trains in numerous locations. The length of time it took to rescue these trains and the passengers onboard led to a formal investigation of the Network Control Centre, which concluded that information was not disseminated to frontline functions as quickly as it should have been. The resulting report also suggested a number of changes that should be carried out, ranging from the physical layout of the Network Control Centre to the training received by the Control Managers and the role the Centre should play in an incident of this type.

Along with the name change, two new positions were created - the Network Operations Manager and Network Information Manager, enabling the Network Operations Centre to provide a focus for enhanced service. The report also recommended that the Network Operations Centre should be redesigned around the twin functions of Incident Management and Customer Information and that it should become the hub of the network.

Tracey then explained the benefits of the new information system NIMROD that has been introduced to improve the accuracy and visibility of information. NIMROD is a secure data logging system which replaced the paper logs that were previously used. The advantages of the system are that each user can instantly see each item, thus preventing duplication of effort. The system can also be accessed remotely for management outside of the Network Operations Centre. Tracey also stated that they were looking at the possibility of this system being extended to the Line of Route Controls.

Along with NIMROD, a new touch screen telephone system has been introduced which allows cherry-picking of calls to ensure that important calls do not get blocked. Perhaps the simplest yet most effective piece of technology introduced is that of an ‘Incident Clock’. The idea of this is to highlight the length of time that an incident has been ‘live’ as Tracey said it was easy for Incident Controllers to get caught up in the incident and forget just how long customers had been affected.

But not all of the changes have been behind the scenes. The introduction of electronic service update boards at stations across the network is designed to give customers the information they need to be able to divert around an incident where possible.

Tracey then opened the workshop up for a discussion on the topics raised, with the predominant feeling amongst the group that London Underground’s Customer Focus had greatly improved in recent years. The fact that rarely are you left on a stopped train for more than a minute before the driver announces the reason for the delay was highlighted as an example to the industry of how it should be done. This ‘30 second rule’ is regularly audited and the data produced used to carry out performance reviews with drivers to maintain and improve Customer Focus.

London Underground are a part of the industry that can be thought of as very separate to the national rail network, but this workshop shows how similar they are and just how much there is that can be transferred across. Special thanks to Tracey and LUL for taking the time to share their good practice with the IRO.