APPENDIX 17
Memorandum submitted by the Serco Group
plc
INTRODUCTION
Serco is one of the world's leading service
companies, working in partnership to help governments improve
services across many areas of public life—from transport
to healthcare, education to defence and justice systems to scientific
research. Our work ranges from the management of facilities, projects
and IT systems, through to the creation of entirely new businesses.
This includes the financing, design and build of new facilities,
including hospitals and transport systems, as well as their day-to-day
operation. We run world-class scientific establishments, provide
critical information to manage traffic, maintain buildings, operate
railways and detain offenders.
Our division, Serco Integrated Transport, works
across modes both in the UK—particularly in Greater London—and
overseas and, we believe, can provide some highly relevant insights
into the Committee's inquiry through its involvement in five areas
in particular:
1. The Sydney Central Management Computer
System. This was at the heart of the highly successful management
of all road traffic in and around Sydney and New South Wales during
the 2000 Games and was designed, installed, developed and maintained
by Serco. It is in use to this day as the main traffic and incident
management system for the region.
2. Manchester Metrolink, which Serco has
operated since 1997. This means that we were heavily involved
in one of the key networks which kept Manchester on the move during
the 2002 Commonwealth Games and, a year later, during a major
European football final.
3. The Docklands Light Railway, due to be
extended further into East London and, very shortly, to London
City Airport. Serco has been operating this since 1997 and, it
should be noted, has now been shortlisted during the current franchise
rebid process. Best and final offers are due to be submitted on
27 September and a preferred bidder is expected to be selected
by Transport for London in November. This ongoing process will
therefore constrain what we are able to say in our evidence to
you.
4. The National Traffic Control Centre.
Working closely with the Highways Agency, our operation at the
NTCC helps to monitor 6,500km of roads for incidents and congestion,
forwarding information to the police, the emergency services and
the driving public via motorway signage, local radio, phonelines
and the internet.
5. Urban and inter-urban traffic control,
information and incident management systems. Serco has a 25-year
history in providing systems for major conurbations and road networks
across the UK and overseas.
In the following pages, we hope that our experience
and expertise in running these systems in particular provides
some useful evidence to the Committee's inquiry. We have not sought
to address all the specific areas which the Committee indicated
it would be examining in the press notice of 21 July. Rather,
we have used these as pointers to inform our contributions.
1. THE SYDNEY
CENTRAL MANAGEMENT
COMPUTER SYSTEM
In 1997 during the run up to the Sydney Olympics,
against competition from 30 other international bidders, Serco
were chosen to design, supply, install and maintain a Central
Management Computer System for the New South Wales Road Traffic
Authority (RTA).
The CMCS was the major element of a new Transport
Management Centre set up by the RTA specifically to ensure that
traffic during the Olympics was managed effectively, strategically
and with minimum congestion in an area comprising 6 million inhabitants,
including 4 million in and around Sydney.
Central to Serco's CMCS was the creation of
an Incident Management System which had to integrate not only
with existing systems and technology and with other suppliers,
but also with the Sydney Co-ordinated Adaptive Traffic System
(SCATS) which controls all the traffic signals in the city.
In addition to the CMCS system, Serco was responsible
for the installation of a large number of loop based incident
detection equipment on the road network in Sydney and developed
the necessary roadside processing devices to transmit live and
historic traffic data back to the CMCS. The live traffic data
was used to automatically alert the CMCS operators of traffic
incidents on the road network, allowing them to implement appropriate
responses quickly and avoid the build up of congestion.
Importantly, the RTA chose to procure an existing
system with modifications rather than a completely new one. Serco
re-supplied proven technology used for the National Driver Information
and Control System previously supplied to the Scottish Office
(now Scottish Executive)
This helped to ensure both early delivery and
development of a training plan for all operators and support staff,
as well as enabling the RTA to use the 2000 Easter Show in Sydney
(one of the biggest annual events in the city) as a "dry
run" for testing all systems and operational procedures under
real life conditions.
A number of procedures were re-worked, and some
changes to functionality redesigned. During the Games themselves,
Serco provided hands on support on site, as well as 24/7 back
up from the development team back in the UK, giving the RTA considerable
reassurance.
When initially deployed the system covered the
Sydney Metropolitan area but over the years it has expanded and
has now become the incident management system for the whole of
New South Wales. Since the Olympics the CMCS system has also continued
to be the main desktop integration engine in the Traffic Management
Centre, enabling the technological development of new initiatives
such as Clearway Towing through a single operator workstation.
In terms of the key lessons that we learned
working in patnership with the RTA, we would suggest that:
— Procurement should insist on a demonstrable
track record.
— Operators of the system should be
trained early so that any user issues can be tackled in good time.
— The system should be thoroughly tested
in as "real" a situation as possible before the event
itself, with the recognition that shortcomings may become apparent
and changes need to be made.
— Support plans should be place for
each and every system and also tested and verified that they work.
— There are benefits to be gained from
using a one-stop shop, single integrator.
— To maximise investment, try to ensure
that the systems are useable well beyond the Olympics themselves,
and use the investment to benefit the community afterwards.
2. MANCHESTER
METROLINK
Serco has been involved in the Manchester Metrolink
since 1996 and took over full operation of the system a year later.
This meant that Serco was operating this new public transport
link in the city for both the 2002 Commonwealth Games and for
the 2003 Champions League Final between Juventus and AC Milan.
The Commonwealth Games attracted 1 million visitors
to Manchester and Metrolink was by then carrying 18.7 million
passengers a year. Some 882,000 journeys were made during the
11 days of the games compared with 570,000 journeys during the
same period the previous year—an increase of 55%. Metrolink
extended its service hours for the duration of the games and worked
in conjunction with the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport
Executive (GMPTE) and local bus companies to provide a park and
ride system, the overall transport plan being co-ordinated by
the GMPTE. Specifically, Metrolink served 4 of the 10 games sites
directly and provided a shuttle service along with the local bus
companies to service the other 6.
This planning and co-ordination was vital to
the successful movement of people during the Games, although there
was one incident of overcrowding at Old Trafford Station due to
the park and ride scheme when spectators ignored the shuttle buses
and made their way to the Metrolink station. As operators of the
station, we therefore arranged for buses to be diverted from the
football ground. Since Metrolink provided transport not only to
spectators but the competitors, games staff and volunteers, Serco
employed additional staff for customer care and security. We also
made special tickets available in advance from a variety of sources
and from staff and ticket machines on platforms, which helped
to prevent queuing and overcrowding.
The year after the 2002 Games, Metrolink helped
transport an extra 26,000 passengers on top of the normal 48,000
to the Champions League Final between AC Milan and Juventus. This
54% increase (very similar to the total extra numbers carried
the year before) was managed effectively in conjunction with the
GMPTE by concentrating the service where it was needed most, whilst
still meeting the needs of our normal daily patronage. Again,
a comprehensive plan was devised including advice to regular passengers
on the likely impact on their journeys both before and after the
event, helping to avoid overcrowding. Some 7,800 special tickets
were created for officials and corporate clients to avoid queues
for ticket machines. Revenue staff were placed at key gateway
stations to carry out crowd control and issue further tickets.
Barriers were used to manage queuing systems and contingencies
planned for any overcrowding.
The Metrolink network now carries more than
19 million passengers a year, is 37 kilometres in total and operates
3 routes over a mixture of segregated railway and street running
sections. From these two major global sporting events held in
a UK city, Serco would sum up the key priorities as:
— Work closely with all stakeholders—transport
providers, organisers, promoters.
— Minimise modal transfers, so park
and ride directly to the event rather than park and ride to another
exchange where further transport is required.
— Plan for contingencies using multi-agency,
then multi-modal involvement.
— Recruit extra staff in good time,
since there may be a limit to what local populations can supply
and possible competition over remuneration.
— Test all appropriate plans, in particular
for contingencies, well ahead of the event itself.
— Success will guarantee extra patronage
into the future.
3. DOCKLANDS
LIGHT RAILWAY
Serco was originally awarded the franchise to
operate and maintain this new light railway for London in 1997
and subsequently received a two year franchise extension in 2004.
There is now a new franchise bidding process under way, for which
Serco has been shortlisted along with French company Keolis. Under
these constraints therefore, we only feel able to inform the committee
publicly that on the Olympics specifically, work on preparing
comprehensive transport plans is well under way.
The DLR network is currently being extended
to London City Airport, with the new link due to open this December,
and there will be further enhancements to what is seen as an important
link in the Olympic transport region coming up between now and
2012 including 3 Car Operation, links to the North London Line
and to Barking Reach.
Since 1997 passenger growth has risen from 16.7
million passenger journeys per annum to 51 million which represents
a 15% compound annual growth over eight years. Currently, DLR
has 94 fully automated vehicles, c440 staff and 34 stations three
of which are underground. The networks covers 28 kilometres of
track and current performance figures show that the railway provides
51 million passenger miles per year.
Serco is responsible for safety reporting to
the HMRI as safety case holder and operates and maintains the
railway to targets set by the client. Serco's role also covers
all marketing and revenue control.
Reliability of the service has also increased
from just under 96% in 2002 peaking in April 2005 at 98.56% and
we believe that Serco management and our superb staff have been
the reasons why we have been six times winner of the National
Rail Award and have also received the ROSPA Gold sector award
for Health and Safety for the last two years.
4. THE NATIONAL
TRAFFIC CONTROL
CENTRE
Serco was selected by the UK Highways Agency
in March 2001, to deliver and operate its National Traffic Control
Centre (NTCC) project, enabling accurate and relevant traffic
information service to be provided to road users throughout England,
as well as supporting organisations such as the police, local
highway authorities, other transport network operators and the
media.
The NTCC uses a comprehensive suite of existing
and new technologies to obtain a clear picture of traffic conditions
and supply accurate information. It collects and manages information
on the performance of the road network, including a database of
road network characteristics, information about incidents and
events, traffic flow and journey times, and weather conditions.
It provides detailed responses to these conditions to better manage
the network during incident conditions, analysing and continually
improving management tools, techniques and methodology.
The programme included the construction of a
new National Traffic Control Centre building at Junction 3 of
the M5 motorway in the Midlands region and the implementation
of a national up-to-the-minute traffic monitoring network, supported
by a computer system and communications to link to a wide range
of existing traffic monitoring and information systems. Serco
installed 104 variable message signs, 3,000 traffic monitoring
stations and automatic numberplate recognition equipment to gather
journey time data. The existing communications infrastructure
has been upgraded to a Broadband Network.
As part of the set up of operations, Serco also
established national and local agreements with all local authorities
in England, including Transport for London, and the national transport
authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for better
managing traffic and providing drivers with information in response
to incidents and major events. There are operating agreements
with all of England's police forces and with a range of other
stakeholders, such as the football association and other major
event centres and Network Rail. The NTCC also integrates with
the seven new Highways Agency Regional Control Centres for improved
traffic management both locally and nationally level and from
a national perspective.
Handling major events is a core function of
the NTCC. We have dedicated staff employed who are directly responsible
for handling the operational relationships between stakeholders.
This knowledge base has been gained from not only handling major
UK events since we took over operation of the Midlands Driver
Information System from the police in 2002, but also from experience
gained by Serco as part of our overseas systems implementations,
which specifically includes the Central Management Computer System
developed and deployed by Serco for the Roads and Traffic Authority
of New South Wales that managed the network for the Sydney 2000
Olympics.
A recent example of integrated operation was
our response to the London bombings. In response to these events
in London we immediately set all the variable message signs on
the motorway network to warn drivers away from London, with particular
emphasis on the motorways approaching the capital. We established
and maintained detailed communication with TfL and the Met Police,
as well as surrounding authorities and other stakeholders.
5. URBAN AND
INTER-URBAN
TRAFFIC CONTROL,
INFORMATION AND
INCIDENT MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
Serco has a 25-year history in traffic technology
systems which stretches across the UK and overseas. In London,
Serco has developed and continues to support the East London Traffic
Control System, which manages traffic in this complex road network
of tunnels, motorway, dual and single carriageways. We currently
maintain London's driver information system, as well as around
half of London's traffic signals, including the main City area.
Serco equipped the UK's first toll motorway,
the M6, with a communications and traffic management system and
has installed over 90% of the UK's speed cameras. Serco also won
a contract with the UK Highways Agency to deploy a major part
of England's National Motorway Communication System (NMCS). This
involved the design and integration of several systems to monitor
traffic conditions and control various sub-systems such as Variable
Message Signs, Automatic Incident Detection, weather related systems
and a central Control Office System to 20 Police Control Centres
enabling operators to manage the regional network. Serco successfully
deployed NMCS in Belfast and Wales at the same time.
Serco was also chosen to design, develop and
deploy the integrated National Driver Information and Communication
Systems for Scotland, which included installing monitoring and
signalling equipment for the entire Scottish motorway network.
This included a Central Motorway Monitoring and Control System
providing Incident Response Management and Traffic Management
from a centre in Glasgow as well as remote systems in twelve Police
Control Offices around Scotland.
Outside the UK, Serco has also been heavily
involved in systems deployment designed to better manage traffic
and information to various stakeholders in and around major cities
with growing congestion issues. In Stockholm for example, Serco
have worked with the Swedish National Road Administration to develop
a Central Technical System for this city of over 2 million inhabitants,
which has particular traffic problems because of the numerous
waterways and islands. Serco has recently been awarded the contract
for a similar project in Hong Kong.
September 2005
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