21/12/06 - Central Trains to adopt TrainTRACS

Central Trains to adopt TrainTRACS
Tracsis is pleased to report that following extensive pilot work, Central Trains has confirmed it will proceed in adopting the TrainTRACS scheduling system.

Central Trains is owned by National Express Group and operates local and cross-country trains throughout central England. They are widely regarded as having one of the most complex and challenging rail networks to run with over 1,300 miles of rail track, some 300 stations and over half a million passenger journeys each week in and around Birmingham and the West Midlands. The TrainTRACS software will allow Central to carry out crew scheduling activities on a reduced timeframe and provide a tool for carrying out scenario planning for future services and performance improvements.

20/11/06 - Irish Rail to pilot TrainTRACS software

Irish Rail to pilot TrainTRACS software
Tracsis is pleased to announce that Irish Rail (Iarnród Éireann) has agreed to test the TrainTRACS system for use throughout their entire Irish operations. The work will commence immediately and continue throughout December and January with the potential to lead to a longer term partnership.

Irish Rail is the national railway of Ireland and operates all internal intercity, suburban and commuter railway services throughout the country.

05/10/06 - Virgin Cross Country to pilot TrainTRACS

Virgin Cross Country to pilot TrainTRACS
Tracsis is pleased to announce that it has entered into a commercial arrangement with Virgin Cross Country to pilot the TrainTRACS crew scheduling software. The pilot work will test whether the software is fit for purpose within Cross Country operations.

Virgin Cross Country has by far the most extensive network of any franchise on the British railway system — stretching as far as Aberdeen in the North to Brighton and Penzance in the South. The franchise is part of Virgin Trains which is in turn a collaboration between Virgin Group and Stagecoach Group.

19/09/06 - DfT announces bidders for 3 new rail franchise

DfT announces bidders for 3 new rail franchise
The Department of Transport announce today the shortlist for New Cross Country, East Midlands and West Midlands rail franchises:

New Cross Country franchise:

• Arriva Trains Cross Country Limited (Arriva Group)


• First Cross Country Limited (First Group)


• NXC Trains Limited (National Express Group)


• Virgin Voyager Trains Ltd (Virgin Rail Group)

East Midlands franchise:

• Arriva Trains East Midlands Limited (Arriva Group)


• First East Midlands Limited (First Group)


• NXE Trains Limited (National Express Group)


• Stagecoach Midland Rail Limited (Stagecoach Group)

West Midlands franchise:

• London & Birmingham Railway Limited (Govia)


• MTR Corporation (UK) Limited (MTR Corporation of Hong Kong)


• NXE Trains Limited (National Express Group)


• Serco NedRailways West Midlands Limited (a Joint Venture between Serco and NedRailways)

In addition Chiltern Railways (M40 Trains Ltd, a subsidiary of John Laing plc) are being invited to submit a separate proposal for the Snow Hill services in Birmingham.

The three new operating franchises will commence on 11 November 2007. End dates of the three new franchises have been phased tomatch end dates with other relevant franchises and contribute to a smoothing of the future re-franchising programme.

15/09/06 - Tracsis collaborates with Halcrow Group

Tracsis collaborates with Halcrow Group
Tracsis has entered into a contractual arrangement with Halcrow Group to supply consultancy services and expertise within the field of crew scheduling optimisation.

Halcrow are a well known specialist engineering group who support a variety of transport industries. The Group has over 6,000 employees worldwide and plays a key role in providing support services to UK train operating companies.

24/07/06 - GOVIA adopts TrainTRACS system

GOVIA adopts TrainTRACS system
Following on from a successful pilot project at the beginning of the year, Tracsis is pleased to announce that it has today entered into commercial arrangement with GOVIA for the use of the TrainTRACS system.

GOVIA operates Southern Rail and SouthEastern, which are both large train operating companies within the UK, running over 1,900 services per day.

10/07/06 - Arriva Trains Wales to use TrainTRACS

Arriva Trains Wales to use TrainTRACS
Tracsis is pleased to announce it has completed a commercial agreement with Arrival Train Wales (ATW) for use of the TrainTRACS crew scheduling system.

Tracsis and ATW undertook feasibility work earlier in 2006 to assess whether the system was capable of accurately modelling the Welsh Valleys network and produce efficent rail crew diagrams. As a result of this work, the system will now be adopted for use by in-house rail planners for day-to-day and short term planning (STP) activities. ATW operates a fleet of 127 trains covering 235 destinations throughoutWales and the Welsh Marches. The franchise was awarded in 2003 and is due to run for 15 years until 2018.

05/07/06 - Tracsis wins software accolade

Tracsis wins software accolade
The research project which spawned the current TrainTRACS and BusTRACS software has been voted one of the top 100 world-changing discoveries to come out of the UK universities in the past 50 years.

The report, published in the Guardian and the Independent newspaper has several other novel inventions and discoveries that emanate from the University of Leeds. For the full story, please follow this link:

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,,1812460,00.html

01/07/06 - New software release

New software release
Tracsis is pleased to announce it has today releasd a new version of TrainTRACS for UK rail operators.

The new release provides users with an enhanced look and feel that is consistent with the Windows XP environment. The functionalities of TrainTRACS have been significantly improved with new tools designed specifically around short term planning.

Tracsis would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who spent the time to input into the development process, in particular Mark Glenister from Northern Rail, Mike Salmon from Southern Rail, Shaun Fisher from GNER and Mark Quin from Scotrail.

The new version of TrainTRACS will be made available to Tracsis clients free of charge and become the new benchmark for the intelligent crew scheduling software suite.

25/06/06 - Commercial agreement with Northern Rail

Commercial agreement with Northern Rail
Tracsis is pleased to announce it has agreed commercial terms with Northern Rail for adoption of the TrainTRACS crew scheduling suite. This announcement follows a successful feasibility pilot which took place at the end of 2005 and early 2006. The results of this pilot showed operational improvements were possible through use of TrainTRACS and would allow for a variety of strategic analysis that is currently not possible. By way of background, Northern Rail are a joint venture operation between Serco and NedRailways.

Northern run over 2500 train services each day across the North of England and are one of the largest UK operators in terms of geography. The Northern franchise was awarded in 2004 and is due to run for 8 years and 9 months initially.

21/06/06 - Tracsis sponsors CASPT 2006

Tracsis sponsors CASPT 2006
Tracsis plc., together with First Group Plc, will sponsor the 10th International Conference on Computer-Aided Scheduling of Public Trasport (CASPT 2006).

The conference is a good opportunity for the industry and academics to come together to discuss how cutting edge research can be best utilised in the transportation planning field. For more details on the conference, see:

http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/caspt06/index.php

12/06/06 - GNER gets on board with Tracsis

GNER gets on board with Tracsis
Tracsis today announces it has entered into a commercial agreement with GNER for use of the TrainTRACS software suite.

This agreement follows on from a successful feasibility study carried out earlier the year which demonstrated the software was fit for purpose for operational crew diagramming for GNER.

GNER operates high speed inter-city services on the East Coast Mainline and is widely regarded as being an industry leader in service delivery and passenger satisfaction.

15/05/06 - Tracsis appoints new Associate Director

Tracsis appoints new Associate Director
Tracsis is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Ann Kwan as Associate Director of the business.

Ann has spent the past 13 years working at the University of Leeds where she was involved in a variety of applied research into complex transport scheduling problems. Ann's move to a full time position within Tracsis will be of huge benefit to both company and clients alike.

15/03/06 - Tracsis commences new pilot

Tracsis commences new pilot
Tracsis has commenced revenue generating pilot program with Southern Rail. Operating in the South and Inner London City and connecting the South Coast, Southern Rail is one of the largest Railway operators within the country. The decision over a full commercial contract is expected in the next few months. Tracsis is also hoping to sign a similar deal with London and South Eastern Railway (LSER), the sister company of Southern Railway.

01/02/06 - Technical team expansion

Technical team expansion
Tracsis is pleased to announce 2 new appointments to the business - Dr Andrew Schwarz and Miss Yiyu Chen.

Andrew will play an integral role in further R&D work into automated vehicle planning while Yiyu will play a more customer facing and technical consulting role with clients.