Problem
South Western Railway's (SWR) franchise that commenced in August '17 included two major timetable change commitments. (Documents relating to all franchise agreements can be accessed from the DfT website).
Key aspects included:
December '18:
i. Increased service frequencies, earlier and later trains; extended formations etc
ii. Introduction of refurbished Class 442 EMU fleet enabling additional long-distance peak trains to operate and existing services to be lengthened
iii. Improved long-distance journey times enabled by reduced dwells, amended calling patterns and portion working with trains splitting en-route
December '20:
i. Introduction of newly manufactured suburban area Class 701 EMU trains using accelerated timings
ii. New method of working (train despatch etc) providing reduced dwells
iii. Increased passenger capacity with many 8 car suburban trains replaced by 10 car Class 701s
A period of sustained poor performance on the intensively operated and highly infrastructure constrained Wessex Route prior to the intended introduction of the service changes, resulting in an assessment of the capability of the network being undertaken by Network Rail. This assessment concluded that significant elements of these two timetable change packages could not be undertaken due to constraints within the railway system.
Task:
You are the Programme Manager leading a joint Train Operating Company/Infrastructure Manager team tasked with identifying and evaluating issues which are liable to block implementation of these changes, and then determining the optimum industry way forward for submission to the Department of Transport.
To undertake this task, you will need to write a report in an attempt to gain approval to a costed, funded, resourced, and dated programme of activities and deliverables. Your report will need to include the following outputs:
i. Identification of those issues which would be liable to be constraints to the successful but deferred implementation of these two packages of change reflecting that the existing network is both intensively operated and poorly performing. Through what mechanisms and by involving which parties would the associated risks be evaluated?
ii. Resolution of the identified issues might come through mitigating interventions, changes to the required outputs or a combination of both and are liable to require the involvement of multiple industry parties and functions. How and in conjunction with who will you identify the optimum business solution? What costs, benefits constraints and objectives will need to be considered in developing the optimum business case?
iii. A key element of the programme is introduction of the Class 701 train fleet. You are asked to organise a schedule of the traincrew and infrastructure function related activities and identify the other stakeholders/ functions that will have a specific interest in each of them. Your answer should include use of a Gantt chart that shows the potential timescales and any inter-dependencies relating to those key activities required of the Train Operator and Infrastructure Provider.