Creating forgettable journeys

Cory Roeton explains how Operational Readiness Plans help new railways deliver the 'forgettable' experiences that passengers want.

The journeys most passengers can usually recall are those that went wrong. The occasions when the train didn't turn up. The cross-country trip when the onboard facilities were out of service. The times when poor information led to missing connecting services. Or when delays enroute to the airport meant arriving too late for the flight.

By contrast, those that pass without incident do not linger in the mind in quite the same way.

Yet whilst 'Uneventful Journeys' may not be the advertising campaign a rail operator will want to unveil with great fanfare, it is something they increasingly aspire to.

"More and more often we hear rail operators talk of simply wanting to deliver forgettable journeys for passengers”, says Cory Roeton, Senior Advisor for Rail Operations and Customer Experience.

"This is not to take away from the grandeur of station design and functionality, or well-appointed customer touch points on rolling stock. Passengers expect comfortable environments and service information. But nine times out of ten their journey is simply a means to an end," says Cory.

"They want to know they have the correct ticket, and that a safe and clean train will be operating on time. They want to be able scroll through messages or listen to music without having to think about a back-up journey plan. If there is disruption, the expectation is they will recieve regular service updates whilst the incident is managed with minimal inconvenience”.

Delivering those seamless and ‘forgettable' experiences, however, requires extensive behind the scenes planning, testing, coordination and execution.

_{[Continues below...]}

People will be at the heart of your railway

Operational Readiness is about applying a structured and controlled approach to managing the transition of a civil engineering programme to a fully operational railway.

“Developing the Operational Readiness Plan starts from the very outset of the project, when the earliest design details are still being captured,” says Cory.

“That is the optimum point to engage with the wider team, its contractors and external stakeholders to ensure their requirements are reflected in the evolving plan.”

Furthermore, it’s about leadership. Setting a culture of ‘readiness’ to deliver project milestones, the ability to host honest conversations when things don’t go to plan, and to be agile in decision making across an ever-changing environment.

“At its core, Operational Readiness is a comprehensive change management programme," says Cory. "By building a framework, coupled with a mindset of readiness, the project is thinking about delivery, testing, user acceptance and handover to the operator. The mindset is about mitigating and managing risk to both the project and the eventual end user, identifying issues as they are experienced with the luxury of time to ‘make good’ such deficiencies." 

Using the Plan as a basis for allocating accountabilities and responsibilities means it can also form the basis of staff training.

“Your staff will be the heart of the railway," says Cory. " It's important to allocate sufficient time to allow them to visit sites and familiarise themselves with the systems and processes they will be expected to work with. Better still, where budget allows, involve your engineering and operations teams during the Testing and Commissioning phase."

"The experiences and learnings are limitless. You truly get to understand how a system (asset) fails, how the operations team deliver a workaround, and how engineering recovers and rectifies the system (asset). This is real-world, practical learning in action and a good opportunity to understand how the system (asset) and person will interact.

Competence meets confidence

The real test, however, comes at the Trial Operations stage. This is a critical juncture:  as well as being the moment where the moving parts of the railway are put to the test, it is also about helping people to understand their responsibilities and feel confident about what is expected of them - from what will become daily routines to practicing emergency incident response. This is where competence meets confidence.

In Cory's experience, you don't want the trials stage to complete without a hitch. "Trial Operations is not expected to run smoothly", he says. "It is the learning phase - the final opportunity to get it wrong, to learn, to share improvements, and grow holistically before going into a ‘live’ customer environment.”

Test, learn and repeat

No project as complex as constructing a modern rail system will get everything immediately right. Many suffer increased costs and delays as problems emerge, systems misalign, or procedures fail to function.

However, a project that follows a consistent, continually updated Readiness strategy will be better equipped to stay the course and ensure the delivered railway operates as designed and intended.

"A key point about Operational Readiness is that it is based on the well-known principal of ‘Plan, Do, Check, Act’," says Cory. "It is about ensuring every aspect of the railway is tested, challenged and revisited throughout its development and long into its operational life. To leave no stone unturned and ensure everything is aligned and integrated."

By doing so, the project team has every right to believe they have delivered a system that will provide thousands of uneventful and forgettable journeys every day for many years to come.