Serco Metrolink Case Study
Serco Group is one of the world’s largest outsourcing services company and handles major contracts for defence, civil government, commerce, science and transport sectors in over 30 countries. The company’s annual turnover in the six months to 30 June 2003 was £722.6 million.
In the rail sector, Serco’s contracts range from property maintenance androlling stock testing services through to the operation of rail franchisesaround the world.
Serco’s current franchises include the Copenhagen Metro in Denmark, the Great Southern Railway in Australia, the Docklands Light Railway in London and Manchester’s Metrolink tram system.
Serco takes full responsibility for managing the total service to its franchises' customers. This includes operation of the control room, passenger services, marketing and advertising - as well as the collection and protection of revenue.
The Problem
Manchester’s Metrolink tram system has been a huge success since it opened in 1992 – over 47,000 people now travel on the Metrolink every day.
Serco Metrolink, a wholly owned subsidiary ofSerco, took over operations and maintenance of the Metrolink system in May 1997. The company quickly enhanced benefits to passengers by extending routes and introducing more frequent services, making the tram system ever more convenient.
Whilst the majority of passengers regularlybought tickets to travel, Serco - like many public transport operators across the UK - started to experience revenue losses due to fare evasion.
Manchester’s Metrolink service has operatedan open stop system from day one. The onus to buy tram tickets is firmly on passengers who can purchase tickets from ticket machines at Metrolink stops or buy season tickets from a wide range of outlets. With operating an open system, it is also open to abuse.
To combat the revenue risks posed by fare evasion, Serco needed an unobtrusive solution, which would allow those passengers who regularly bought tickets to continue to travel freely but which would stop one-off and repeat fare evaders in their tracks.
Serco also needed an intelligent solution. Asignificant number of fare evaders wereopting to pay the standard fine, rather thanpay the cheaper, on-the-spot fine - and ticketinspectors quickly found out why.
A high proportion of the names and addresses given by fare evaders to ticket inspectors for fine dispatches were incorrect, which meant the fare evaders were able to avoid fines.
The Solution
The key to curbing fare evasion on Manchester’s Metrolink tram system lay in GB’s extensive population data, The National Register‚ - the UK’s largest independent source of population information, which is accessed through GB’s Accelerator technology.
To crack down on the trend amongst fare evaders to offer incorrect names and addresses when caught, GB Group created a failsafe solution.
Serco Metrolink installed GB Accelerator software with a subset of Greater Manchester’s residents from its National Register database and installed the data onto wallet-sized Compaq iPAQ computers for use by Metrolink’s 40 ticket inspectors.
The hi-tech system allowed inspectors to spot incorrect information given to them by fare evaders in just three seconds, by helping them to cross-check names and addresses offered against the real details of 430,000-plus people living in Greater Manchester.
Details of fare evaders claiming to live outside the City limits were relayed by ticket inspectors to Metrolink’s customer service centre. Here Serco Metrolink was able to quickly cross-match details given against GB Group’s desktop Accelerator software, containing the full National Register database with over 48 million individual names and addresses of people living in the UK.
The Compaq iPAQ’s were also designed to capture additional data – such as the tram route, physical description of the passenger and time of travel - to help ticket inspectors spot fare evasion hotspots and curb repeat offences.
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