Media centre

Monday 23 Feb 2004

NETWORK RAIL AND SOUTH WEST TRAINS LAUNCH JOINT CONTROL CENTRE TO DELIVER LONG TERM BENEFITS TO PASSENGERS

Region & Route:

| Southern: Wessex

| Southern

Today, the Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP, Secretary of State for Transport, officially opened the first fully integrated railway operations control centre since privatisation.  The groundbreaking Wessex Integrated Control Centre (WICC), based at Waterloo Station, sees Network Rail and South West Trains working together to run all services across the South West of England, some 10% of Britain’s trains. The state of the art WICC introduces the concept of a single decision maker, the ‘fat controller’, who will make decisions in the interest of passengers ensuring the network runs as smoothly as possible with reduced delays. The centre also brings together controllers from both companies to work side by side, improving communications, streamlining the decision making process and ultimately delivering an improved service to passengers.  The £2.5million project makes use of the latest technology, including touch screen telephones, large LCD screens and a high tech incident room to allow controllers to respond quickly and efficiently to incidents. Network Rail’s regional director Robin Gisby said, “ The new control centre clearly demonstrates what can be achieved when we work together as an industry and is already delivering performance improvements.  The success of the WICC is the culmination of months of hard work with our colleagues at South West Trains and we plan to roll out further integrated control centres across the UK.” Andrew Haines, South West Trains Managing Director added, “Only by working together will we achieve the full potential of the railway and give our passengers the best possible service”.