Platform for change
CrossCountry is using a new smart communications suite developed by Nexus Alpha that promises to transform the provision of information to staff and passengers. ANDREW RODEN explores the potential of Arrakis
Introducing the Arrakis smart communication suite.
These days, virtually any technological innovation - particularly when it comes to software - is heralded as a game-changer. But a new system developed by Nexus Alpha and being deployed by CrossCountry just may justify the term. Called Arrakis, its bold aim is to transform the way that information is collected and disseminated to railway staff and customers alike.
Nexus Alpha’s Tyrell IO control room system is widely used in the railway, and its data on incidents and train running is already used to keep staff informed. However, as CrossCountry Duty Control Manager Matt Reeves tells RAIL: “We have a number of products that provide information. The problem is that there’s often multiple incidents and, as a result, too much information provided to staff - particularly train crews. At times, they can’t see the wood for the trees.”
This is what Arrakis aims to solve. It draws information from across the railway (including Tyrell IO and the Darwin customer information system) and then, crucially, tailors that information to staff’s specific needs.
So, while currently a CrossCountry train manager may receive information affecting the operator’s entire network, Arrakis enables much greater personalisation of that information.
Using a mobile application, staff can enter details of the trains they are working on a given day, and select what sort of information they wish to be alerted about. This could include information about other operators on the train’s route, details of punctuality of connecting trains, problems at stations, and so on. The aim is to provide staff with relevant information and avoid overload, giving them more time to serve passengers.
Reeves explains: “It isn’t just about our own trains - it can alert about other operators’ services. That means we can give passengers better information about their journey - if staff have better information, then so do passengers.”
Arrakis has long been in development by Nexus Alpha, whose pedigree in the railway information business dates back to the 1990s. And following CrossCountry’s Direct Award extension in 2017, the operator’s requirement to provide better customer information synchronised neatly with the system’s development.
In its initial form it will provide onboard staff with: control room information; enhanced staff live departure boards; cancellation, part-cancellation and significant lateness status; and ‘rainbow boards’ which provide a
colour-coded view of how different routes are performing, and multi-TOC cancellation and significant lateness disruption. It began rolling out last summer.
However, while providing better information to railway staff and passengers is a laudable aim, the potential of Arrakis is much, much bigger. Because it has been designed ‘from the ground up’ to be a modular system, additional elements can be added easily and then tailored to the specific needs of staff.
One exciting possibility highlighted by Nexus Alpha is the provision of travel assistance - an area which the Office of Rail and Road is eager for the rail industry to improve.
When a passenger makes a request for travel assistance, Arrakis can allow staff to input the passenger’s details and their specific needs, and then disseminate it to station staff. The details are received via an alert, to which staff can respond to accept the assistance request. This is relayed to the passenger, who can be reassured not only that assistance will be available, but that a specific member of staff will be helping them. It can also even be used on multi-leg journeys, so that at every point the passenger knows who will be assisting where.
This is made possible by the targeted nature of Arrakis information, meaning that assistance requests at (for example) East Croydon would only go to staff there, with requests for the end of the journey at London Victoria only being sent to staff at that station.
If providing better information and assisted travel were the limits of Arrakis’ capability, it would mark a major step forward, but the potential is greater still. It would be perfectly possible for onboard staff to report incidents on their journey in real-time, with photographs if required, to enable Control Room staff to make more informed decisions.
In the case of a broken window, that ability to report and send images would mean a decision could be taken about whether to take the train out of service at the first opportunity, or to continue to its final destination. Admittedly, staff can do this already and send a message to control, but using Arrakis would mean that subscribers to such information would also automatically be informed.
Arrakis can also provide analysis of train running and trends. Again, while some of the data is already in the railway systems, bringing it together makes it possible to identify issues and resolve them much more quickly. (Arrakis holds data associated with 100,000 route incidents already).
Consistently late departures from a station where catering supplies are loaded could be due to the time being taken on that task. But what if, on certain trains, it is simply greater numbers of passengers boarding and alighting? Or what if time is consistently lost on a specific section of track due to train regulation?
By pulling together multiple data sources, Arrakis can highlight potential issues and enable train operators to find a solution. And as more train running and operational data is added to the system, its machine learning algorithms mean it can provide ever more precise insight into operational issues.
Fares data could be added to the system to provide cues about expected heavy loadings at stations, feeding back into timetable planning - or even, potentially, the likes of advance fares to be changed to manage demand. It can even monitor social media feeds such as Twitter to identify customer sentiment and spot trends.
In the future, it is entirely possible that passengers could effectively use a version of the Arrakis interface tailored to their journeys with alerts about connecting trains and other transport modes, with integration from Traveline and data from bus real-time providers. Its potential is only limited by the data fed into the system. It is this modular approach and flexibility which makes it so powerful.
Naturally, Nexus Alpha believes it has a winner on its hands, but so does CrossCountry.
“I think it’ll be a game changer,” says Reeves. “Providing more information to passengers can only be a good thing.”
At a time when the rail industry is under sustained fire for its provision of passenger information, it is hard to argue with his sentiment. Arrakis may just be the tool that the railway, staff and passengers have been wanting for decades. For hard-pressed passengers wondering what is going on at times of disruption, the wider rollout of such a tool cannot come soon enough.