Southeastern today launched, as part of its winter preparation, an online tool showing at-a-glance how train services on all its routes are operating at any given moment.
Vince Lucas, service delivery director said, “This new tool has been created in response to what passengers say they find useful. It will help provide them with a quick and easy way of seeing how our services are running and specifically what disruption is affecting their line of route.”
The tool, on Southeastern’s website homepage, shows either ‘good service’, ‘minor disruption’ or ‘major disruption’ to help inform passengers about their journey. The tool illustrates all 12 Southeastern lines of route separated into Metro, Mainline and High Speed services. By clicking on the disruption level, passengers are taken to more detailed ‘live running’ information already available on the website.
Based on the same principle as the London Underground tube lines, the different interconnecting routes are also shown on a simple route map and how disruption may affect journeys.
This is the first time a Train Operating Company with a complex and large network such as Southeastern’s has created this kind of ‘service disruption’ tool and is in response to passenger feedback about the need to get information quickly during times of major disruption.
The tool is part of the continual work Southeastern has been doing to improve communications. Today Southeastern is also publishing a contingency timetable on its website, which provides an outline of what the service is likely to be during times of severe disruption, such as the snow and ice experienced in January.
“The contingency timetable would be used at Network Rail’s instruction and is so that Southeastern and Network Rail can focus on running fewer trains but most importantly, a reliable service. We know its better to provide a realistic service passengers can rely on, rather than offer a full timetable that is changed at short notice with many cancelled and diverted services,” added Vince Lucas.
Following the snow causing problems for commuters last winter, Southeastern has been working with Network Rail and other rail industry colleagues to improve communication channels:
- All drivers and conductors have been issued with Blackberrys to receive immediate updates from Control and pass information to customers
- The Southeastern website has been re-built and is now hosted on new servers to ensure it can cope with large volumes without slowing and ‘crashing’
- Customers can get updates on Twitter and sign up for dedicated email alerts tailored to their individual journeys
To complement these initiatives Network Rail has also taken steps to improve the reliability of the infrastructure during winter weather. More than 16,000m of heating strips are being trialled on the third rail power system at stations, junctions and signals on the most vulnerable parts of the railway in Kent to minimise disruption caused during winter weather. The company has also been working with the University of Birmingham to assess the benefits of new anti-icing and de-icing products, as well as improving weather forecasting techniques to get a more accurate picture of conditions on the rails.
“We hope that the changes we have made will be a noticeable improvement in passenger communication but realise that there will always be more that we can be done. We are committed to continue to learn and improve and these changes are just the next step,” Vince Lucas concluded.
Southeastern
