Rail Operations Centre Post Implementation Review

Network Rail Consulting was asked to provide a post implementation report, a concept of operations and an executive summary to share with the Directorate and senior management team within Sydney Trains.

The Sydney Trains ROC improvement team and NRC worked closely to complete this project by undertaking:

• Interviews with key personnel in the ROC;
• Workshops with ROC teams; and
• Review of relevant policies, procedures and processes.

Network Rail Consulting was asked to consider the following key points:

• Roles that operate with the ROC;
• How delegations of authority are enacted;
• How roles are focused on being customer advocates;
• Review of each business unit’s functions and responsibilities;
• Consideration of Digital Systems Project requirements;
• An assessment of current technologies used in the ROC against industry best practice; and
• Review of Security function.

The project was highly collaborative between NRC and Sydney Trains. Both areas of improvement and success were recognised and highlighted within the finalised report and executive summary. Some of the successes identified were:

The introduction of Rail Emergency Management (REM) communication tool;
• Potential changes to use of the ROC layout;
• The introduction of a new Command & Control model;
• Use of the Overhead Visual Display System (32m x 3.6m LED display containing 41 million pixels); and
• A new Network Incident Manager (NIM) role.

Seven key operational categories were identified and each category was reviewed against Sydney Trains current operation, comparator operators and future requirements:

• Communication;
• Operational decision making;
• Customer experience;
• Competency, training & development;
• Organisation;
• Processes & procedures; and
• Planning & performance.

The key output from this project was a report containing our findings and recommendations. The completed report detailed:

• Successes achieved through the delivery of the ROC;
• Operational integration considerations for the future rollout of European Train Control System (ETCS) Level 2 on the Sydney Trains network;
• 32 recommendations across the seven operational categories; and
• An operational excellence roadmap which creates a pathway and timeline for implementation of the recommendations over the next two years.

All observations and recommendations were focused to deliver continuous improvements. This also highlighted requirements and considerations for the delivery of the Digital Systems Project.

NRC subsequently provided a high-level future state concept of operations, written to integrate with the client’s existing documentation.