Rail Engineer • September 2016 So, in 2011, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) initiated a £288 million modernisation programme with the Scottish Government contributing £246 million. Charlie detailed the five main strands to this programme, smart ticketing, station refurbishment, infrastructure asset renewal, rolling stock and control system replacement, as well as organisational change. Getting the workforce’s commitment to new working practices was an essential first step of the modernisation programme. SPT achieved this in 2012 with an agreement between UNITE and SPT for more flexible working and establishment reduction with no compulsory redundancies. Contactless Subway smartcards were introduced in 2013. Developed by Nevis Technologies, a joint venture between SPT and Ecebs, these cards comply with the UK ITSO standard and so can be used on other public transport. This is likely to happen soon, as Transport Scotland is actively promoting smart ticketing and Nevis was appointed by Abellio ScotRail in 2015 to provide
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Impression of Hillhead station with platform screen doors.
smart ticketing for their franchise. Nevis is also to provide smart-card systems to McGills, Scotland’s largest privately owned bus company. Subway travellers have now been issued with over 110,000 smartcards. In 2015, Smartcard top up was extended to 45 retail outlets close to Subway stations using the Payzone system that also accepts payments for utility and credit card bills.
Station refurbishment Refurbishing the Subway’s fifteen stations accounts for around £50 million. This started in July 2011 with the second busiest station, Hillhead, which was completed fifteen months later. To avoid passenger disruption, 90% of the work had to be done in short night-time possessions.