Operational Excellence

Operational Excellence - Service Delivery

KCS is proud that the switch to an all-day frequency-style service, as well as an excellent operational performance has contributed to the strongest ridership recovery in the nation. As KCS monitors changing ridership habits, we will continue to propose schedule adjustments to meet the demand but also work on protecting OTP performance.

During this business plan cycle, we will focus on:

  1. Securing performance,

  2. Driving resilience

  3. Modernizing and integrating resource management

  4. Implementing a competency management system

  5. Further developing a people performance culture

  • As the next step in delivering reliable performance, KCS is targeting 94.0% on-time performance by the end of 2026. During the prior business plan cycle, the 93.75% OTP plan helped continue a history of steady improvement, reaching 93.15% in 2023. At these levels of on-time performance, incremental increases become ever more challenging to achieve and maintain. Over the next three years, KCS will not only focus its efforts on achieving the 93.75% goal previously set but will continue to identify asset and operational improvements designed to sustain this historically high level of performance and to reach 94.0% in 2026. The data analysis plays a critical role in highlighting opportunities for improvement, illustrating the importance of modernizing our performance management system by enhancing TRMS (Train Reporting Monitoring System) and PowerBI dashboards for performance tracking. This new 94% OTP plan will also help us build the resilience needed to face upcoming challenges.

    Overall, we are aiming to progress with the development and implementation of more digital dashboards to launch visualization management at departmental levels.

  • To maintain the level of performance our customers deserve and expect, ensuring operational resilience is important. In this context, resilience is the ability to anticipate and/or withstand potential service disruptions and recover quickly if/when they do occur. The shift in our scheduling emphasizes the importance of resiliency plans and programs across the commuter rail network. Additional schedule changes, service expansion, aging infrastructure and equipment, and trends in severe weather events will require us to bolster this resilience. To deliver South Coast Rail services scheduled to start in the latter part of 2024, while continuing to perform on the Old Colony, the mobilization will be critical. After the start of service, we will need to mitigate the risks as they arise by leveraging our data-driven approach.

    Seasonal and extraordinary weather also impacts commuter rail resilience. We expect to continue seeing a shift in weather patterns that will require structural business agility in our approach. We will need to adapt our strategies and processes of response to these changing parameters, ensuring KCS delivers safe and reliable service during adverse weather events.

  • A robust resource management plan is necessary to align staffing levels to the needs of our services. It is even more important when the labor market is challenging, as we experience high competition to attract suitable new recruits coupled with the necessary anticipation to train those new employees.

    Effective staffing plans, optimized crew scheduling, absenteeism management, and proper equipment allocation are key to ensure our OTP objectives are met. During this business plan cycle, we will review and strengthen our resource plan processes. We will also refresh existing plans serving to facilitate the adaptation by our locomotive engineers to positive train control (PTC) and automatic train control (ATC) technology.

    In addition, we will seek to provide greater visibility to Service Delivery field managers regarding operational performance against contractual requirements to empower a greater level of management ownership and accountability in this performance area. Our operational robustness will provide scheduling flexibility to effectively manage service expansion or disruptions and will also allow us to secure and integrate the additional special event service when required.

    To expand our technological maturity in resource management, in the second half of 2024 we will digitalize the daily locomotive and coach assignments. The daily lineup process is currently a manual process with a reliance on tacit knowledge of specific employees rather than a systems-based approach. These new resource management tools will streamline the daily lineup process and provide visibility on equipment assignments and availability strengthening business continuity.

  • With ridership growth, service expansion, and schedule changes, it is more important than ever to align our crews with KCS performance objectives designed to deliver a premium service. Starting in 2024, the KCS Service Delivery organization will implement a competency management system to help staff achieve performance objectives. As part of the implementation, the Service Delivery organization will also conduct an Operational Maturity Assessment to identify improvement opportunities and develop new processes aligned with railroad industry best practices.

  • As KCS develops and implements its competency management system, we will empower supervisors and frontline managers to make service decisions that drive performance across the network. Through embedding performance dashboards and visual information in accessible ways, KCS will further equip field managers to make real-time decision making. With this added level of information, managers will have a greater opportunity to share performance targets and objectives with their teams and collectively achieve success in key performance categories. For frontline employees, we will pilot new recognition programs which are a fundamental element to improve engagement.

Operational Excellence - Asset Management

The performance we deliver for our passengers is dependent on how we maintain and repair our assets. The maturity and variety of assets in the MBTA rail network requires a deep and broad technical expertise, leveraging traditional and innovative technologies alike while continually refining processes to optimize performance.

The 2024-2025-2026 KCS business plan calls upon our teams to utilize local and global technical knowledge not only to deliver robust service today, but to develop transformational strategies that prepare us for the future.

  • As we plan for the future of the commuter rail network, we look to take a holistic view on how we manage our assets. KCS will develop long-term strategies leveraging a more proactive approach and emphasizing best practices in managing the commuter rail equipment and infrastructure. Our approach focuses internally on leveraging technology to improve processes and procedures for long-term asset sustainability. We will also focus on external factors, such as environmental changes, which will impact the commuter rail network.

    In leveraging technology, KCS will implement the next phase of our remote condition monitoring strategy. Remote condition monitoring allows us to manage the performance of our assets from a distance. KCS will utilize WebACSES, Wi-Tronix, and other wayside systems for real-time data that enables us to, ideally, identify potential failures before they happen or otherwise to efficiently repair any equipment or infrastructure defects when discovered. Through implementation of these innovative tools, we will reduce the amount of downtime for our service and minimize passenger delays.

    The Asset Management team will also deliver carbon reduction strategies to support a greener commuter rail network. KCS is preparing to pilot the use of renewable fuels to power a segment of our locomotives. Continuing to integrate more bi-level coaches will increase capacity and reduce energy consumption, as bi-level train sets weigh less due to fewer coaches required per set. We will also assess the feasibility of battery-operated yard switchers to further reduce environmental impacts such as noise and emissions. Equipment-specific initiatives include developing an idling reduction strategy.

    KCS continues to advance the culture of quality within the ISO 9001 quality management system as we have received ISO 9001 certification for management and service operations. We look to enhance the quality of document management, both our policies and our processes, for asset management to become fully ISO 9001 certified by the end of 2024.

    Ultimately, by the end of this business cycle, we are aiming to assess our organization against the best international standard ISO 55001 and to build a meaningful path towards excellence based on this gap analysis.

  • In support of the MBTA’s investment in an enterprise asset management system, KCS will complete the deployment of Trapeze throughout the business by the end of 2024. Trapeze is a robust system for capturing and storing asset performance data to drive proactive asset lifecycle management. In addition to completing the deployment across the business, in those areas where Trapeze has been in use for a period KCS will identify ways to enhance our ability to leverage the Trapeze system and deliver those improvement initiatives in 2025.

    The deployment of our Mechanical Consist (M-Consist) tool, scheduled for 2025, and integration with Trapeze will create efficiencies in Mechanical maintenance. M-Consist is a tool used for recording and storing train consist (i.e. – the arrangement of locomotives and coaches in a particular train set) maintenance data derived from daily mechanical inspections, daily servicing, cleaning, and maintenance. M-Consist will provide greater control of work planning, work delivery, and improved data.

    Additionally, KCS will enhance our data repositories to ensure complete and secure data storage for our enterprise asset management and remote monitoring systems. We will also implement a new document management system for streamlining our Engineering document management.

  • To further improve the performance of the commuter rail infrastructure, KCS will deploy a pilot program for the Autonomous Track Inspection Measurement and Inspection System (ATMIS). KCS will install ATMIS on two passenger revenue coaches and will augment traditional inspection methods. The system uses electronic sensors to gather high-quality data about the track infrastructure to proactively identify issues and plan maintenance. Additionally, KCS has scheduled a trial run of the Laser Train for Fall 2024. The laser train will provide a more effective solution for rail head conditioning during leaf fall season to improve adhesion which will improve safety and operational performance.

    KCS is also committed to continuous improvement opportunities throughout the Asset Management organization. Our Mechanical department will implement 5S Lean principles for its loco, coach, and truck shops. Engineering will deliver continuous improvements by formalizing track and maintenance production processes. The new continuous improvement programs will create efficiencies and promote a safer commuter rail network.

  • KCS will create a competency management system to further develop and empower our Asset Management employees. We will design a framework for enhancing competence management systems for all Engineering departments. With the ATC/PTC project nearing completion, we will establish a new signal training program to expand our staff’s technical knowledge and skills. Our Mechanical team will enhance programs for staff training on key systems that impact performance.

A calendar of action items with a list of specific KPI targets for each section of the plan will be available from the VP of your department and will be in the printed Business Plan booklet available soon.