Improvement program and implementation North / South line

Operational improvement from the chain 

At the beginning of 2018, the implementation of the North/South line in Amsterdam was in full swing. There was a lot of testing and practice on the new Amsterdam metro line, which would connect Amsterdam North with Amsterdam South. The introduction date of July 22, 2018 was quickly approaching. The entire Amsterdam public transport system worked together to get the metro line operational. From the carrier GVB and the owner of the infrastructure, Metro and Tram service of the municipality of Amsterdam (Of), the need arose to look at the implementation of the North/South line from one integral perspective and in this way to ensure that the operational performance would be good from day one. Colleagues Jon van Zwieten and Marco van Eijsden helped GVB set up operational performance on the North/South line. They used the Supply Value performance management model for this.  

Choosing the right KPIs 

The first steps were taken by GVB and Of set by agreeing a good set of KPIs with the client, in this case the Amsterdam Transport Region. This looked at KPIs in maintaining stations, infrastructure and systems, but also at KPIs in the reliable operation of a timetable. 

Insight from data 

They then continued in April 2018 bottom up to look at the operational performance of the North/South line from the data and the shop floor. This data from the systems was manually enriched with all other data available in the chain, such as daily reports from traffic control, technician reports, reports from drivers and technical data from the track and the metros themselves. By using all data sources, week after week, based on facts and actual events, we got an increasingly better picture of the bottlenecks in maintenance and implementation.  

The chain at the table 

At the same time, a valuation meeting was started to look at these bottlenecks integrally with the entire chain and to start the right measures to remove them. All chain partners involved, such as rolling stock, infrastructure, personnel, traffic control and the security system, worked together to assess the value of this data. For example, it may be that certain bottlenecks in the deployment of drivers were only temporary due to restrictions related to training. Or that certain types of malfunctions would not occur after an update of the security system. By treating all disruptions integrally with the entire chain, there was also an increasingly better insight into how other chain partners could mitigate the effects of disruptions, or even prevent them altogether. On this In this way, the members of the valuation consultation were able to give solid advice in the prioritization and design of improvement measures and they were able to steer on the effect of those measures. 

Joint adjustment 

The biggest challenger to the Noord/Zuidlijn implementation program was time. The deadline of 22 July 2018 had to be met. Supply Value therefore organized a daily stand up with the program management and line management of all chain partners in order to be flexible and able to adjust quickly. Among other things, the data-based advice of the valuation consultation and the flexibility of the daily stand up couplethe organization is able to make a conscious choice whether or not to take improvement measures and to achieve rapid results.  

A successful start of the North/South line 

And with success, all parties involved were ready for the grand opening on Sunday 22 July. In fact, the North/South line outperformed all other new metro lines that GVB has ever introduced. Outages remained well below one percent in the first few weeks and there were hardly any major disruptions on the line. The introduction was a great success for all parties involved. After the implementation of operational improvement on the North/South line, GVB is rolling out the approach for operational performance on all metro and tram lines.