Prestigious award recognises Bombardier’s role in the London Underground Victoria Line upgrade and support of train operators during the London 2012 Olympics
Rail technology leader Bombardier Transportation has won a top industry award for ‘Supplier of the Year’ at the National Transport Awards 2013.
Bombardier has supplied 376 new BOMBARDIER MOVIA metro vehicles for the Victoria Line, designed and built at its site in Derby, UK. Since the introduction of the new fleet, customer satisfaction levels have increased and passenger waiting times have been reduced, with trains running at intervals of less than two minutes. Reliability has also grown at an unprecedented level. The Victoria Line is now the most reliable service on the London Underground network, with trains running 80,000 km between failures, a distance equivalent to twice around the world.
The award also recognised Bombardier’s role in supporting London’s train operators during the 2012 Olympic Games. With a team effort involving more than 650 Bombardier staff, maintenance teams worked around the clock to ensure that 800 Bombardier trains on nine key routes serving London were available to meet increased demand during the Games. London Underground (with new Bombardier trains on the Victoria and Metropolitan lines) transported more than 60 million passengers and Docklands Light Railway – also using Bombardier vehicles – transported more than 6 million passengers. Over the Olympic period, class 378 BOMBARDIER ELECTROSTAR trains operated by London Overground carried 6.3 million passengers, 50 per cent more than usual. The maintenance window for the fleets reduced from a typical eight hour window to just three hours, yet availability and reliability remained exceptional.
The skills and expertise of Bombardier services provide efficient, competitive and sustainable rail operations globally. They help Bombardier’s customers minimize operational costs and maximize revenue generation over their assets’ whole lifetime, while ensuring the highest levels of passenger safety, dependability and comfort. BOMBARDIER ORBITA diagnostic technology helped to proactively identify maintenance issues before they impacted service.
Francis Paonessa, President of Rolling Stock and Services for Bombardier in the UK, said: “Receiving the award of National Transport Supplier of the Year is a resounding endorsement of the excellent partnership that we have with our customers and our spirit of working to a common goal. We are used to meeting challenging targets to deliver high performance, reliable and safe trains to improve services for passengers. The Olympics offered a great opportunity to show how, through teamwork, we can raise the bar even higher.”