Rail customers will benefit from informed, safe and secure experiences at 156 stations following the awarding of a maintenance contract to critical communications specialists Telent.
Telent will provide planned and reactive maintenance services for more than 4,000 security and information assets across Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR)’s entire southern estate. The contract includes Customer Information Screens (CIS) and Public Announcement (PA) assets and runs for an initial two-year term.
The stations include Gatwick Airport, Brighton and East Croydon. East Croydon is one of the busiest stations in the country and was used by travellers 14.5 million times in 2022, highlighting the importance of delivering passenger information via the CIS and PA systems.
The news follows a recent contract extension for Telent with Merseyrail at its stations covering similar work.
“As the market leader of maintenance services in the transport sector, we’re excited to bring our expertise and experience to such an integral and significant part of the UK’s rail network” said Mike Harten, Head of Operations at Telent. “Mobilisation has been successfully completed and we look forward to delivering a best-in-class service and building strong and trusting relationships with key stakeholders around the GTR business.”
Keith Jipps, Infrastructure Director for GTR, said: “Providing accurate and timely information to our passengers is a critical part of our service. We look forward to working with Telent in the coming years to further improve the standard of customer information at our southern stations.”
During a competitive tender process, Telent proposed the use of several remote monitoring toolsets, which provide a proactive, efficient approach to maintenance and enables rapid response and fix times. It will also contribute to carbon footprint reductions by reducing travel to sites.
“Telent fully supports GTR’s ‘Committed to customers’ core value and will continue to innovate and implement best practice to ensure communication systems are available for commuters to be fully informed of GTR Southern train services” added Mike.
To find out more information about Telent, please visit: https://telent.com/.
Image credit: Telent / GTR
