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These services have fallen into a
number of areas including:
Operating
Plan Redesign/Efficiency
Improvement
Resource
Requirements Analysis/Plan Feasibility
Line
Rationalization/Yard Closures/Facility Requirements
Traffic Analysis/Data
Cleaning
Line
Capacity Analysis
Merger
and Investment/Privatization Analysis
Initial
Database Creation and Start-up Support
Custom
and Off-the-shelf Training Courses
We are particularly strong
in the area of operating plan improvement and redesign, having saved
clients like Canadian Pacific, Norfolk Southern and CSX Transportation
millions of dollars through these efforts. Each
of these areas is explored below. Please contact Jason
Kuehn or Kevin Foy
should you wish to utilize MultiModal’s proven skills in any of these
areas to advance your organization to the next level.
For a document on our consulting
services in pdf format click here.
Operating
Plan Redesign/Efficiency Improvement
Is your
blocking plan making the most effective use of your physical plant? Are
cars being routed in the most efficient manner? Is your train plan
matched to your traffic volumes? Are you taking day-of-week volume
variations into account in your plan?
Is
your plan designed around customer commitments and demands? All of these
types of questions can be addressed through an examination of your
existing plan or development of a new plan using MultiRail®.
Whether you want to develop a clean sheet operating plan, move to a more
scheduled railway, or simply validate and fine tune your existing plan,
MultiRail® and our applied consulting team can help you meet that goal.
MultiModal has developed deep
expertise in the design of railway cargo operating plans.
MultiModal’s MultiRail® software contains extensive tools for
designing and improving wagon-load marshalling plans and the associated
train timetables. We also have the ability to represent a
railway’s train-load operations within MultiRail® and examine its
efficiency. MultiModal typically undertakes two types of analyses:
zero-based and incremental.
The greatest benefits to a train
operating company and its customers are realized when a “zero-based”
plan is developed. A zero-based plan entails discarding the
current operating plan and developing a new plan based solely on the
railway’s network configuration and origin-destination traffic
movements. Such development is a significant undertaking: it often
requires four to six months to develop and one or more months to
implement in the field. It also requires the full commitment of
company management to realize its full benefits.
Incremental analysis focuses on
identifying smaller, less global changes to the current operating plan
that will result in reduced cost and improved service. Such an
analysis starts with the current operating plan and then overlays
“packages” of changes that can be implemented in whole or in part.
These changes are identified using the diagnostic and analytic
capabilities of MultiRail®. The incremental changes often yield
significant benefits. Furthermore, because each “package” of
changes can be readily comprehended by railway management, they tend to
be easier to “sell” within the organization than the results of a
zero-based analysis.
We are
highly experienced in such analyses, having saved railways in North
America, Europe, and other locations world-wide millions of dollars
through our consulting work. In general this work follows the
processes and techniques used in the Prize winning work MultiModal
undertook with Canadian Pacific Railway (click
here for more information). To gain an understanding
of this process, please see the MultiRail
Freight Edition overview presentation, and also review a
detailed description of a zero-based analysis by clicking here
(pdf format).
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Resource
Requirements Analysis/Plan Feasibility
A key question in developing a
operating plan is what the plan will require in terms of locomotives,
wagons, crew members, yard capacities, and line capacities.
MultiModal's consulting team can help with all of these questions
through a combination of experience and proprietary add-on tools that
can be used in conjunction with MultiRail. This includes a number
of fleet sizing tools for locomotives, our Crew Planner tool, our
FastTrack line capacity tool, and a variety of analysis reports and
capabilities found within MultiRail.
Click here
for more information on our line capacity tools.
Click here for information on the Crew
Planner.
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Line
Rationalization/Yard Closures/Facility Requirements
A key area that our consulting team
focuses on is line rationalization, yard closures, and identification of
facility requirements. Generally such analyses are done using
MultiRail. Using MultiRail we able to show the impacts in terms of
traffic, customer service, and operating cost parameters of a yard
closure, line sale, or abandonment. As part of this process a
complete, feasible plan for how the railway will operate post-closure is
also created. Sometimes our analysis points towards expanding
facilities or creating new connections. For example, in our
recent work with Norfolk Southern, our analyses led to a major upgrading
of one yard, and the creation of several new connections, in addition to
supporting the closure or downgrading of a number of yards and
lines. What makes our process unique is that we are able to look
at the overall network impacts of a change, not just the local impacts,
and are able to develop a complete solution to the problem. We
have also recently developed a number of capabilities that allow us to
look at the impact of line closures on total network density and overall
traffic volumes at a network-wide level, bringing further analytic rigor
to the process.
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Traffic Analysis/Data
Cleaning
Critical to the development a railway's operating plan
or the evaluation of changes to a railway is a deep understanding of the
traffic that must be moved by the railway. We often find that
railways are not able to produce a "clean" database that
clearly shows all of the origin to destination shipments handled by the
railway (or to be handled in the future), including both the loaded and
empty movements. More often than not, some empty movements are
missing, location data contains gaps or errors, the timing of the
movements is unknown, the service type information is incomplete (single
wagon load, intermodal, expedited, solid or unit train, etc.), and other
problems exist. We have become experts in the processing of
traffic data, the "cleaning" of this data, filling in gaps,
and in general producing a high quality representation of a railway's
business. We do this both as part of our general operating plan
development consulting practice, and on a stand-alone basis to assist
railways in understanding their business.
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Line
Capacity Analysis
Using
the conflict analysis capabilities in MultiRail and the dispatch/meet
pass planning capabilities found in FastTrack II, along with our TTP
train performance calculator, our applied consulting team can assist
railways in looking at a variety of issues including:
-
Examining
the feasibility of a set of proposed train schedules
-
Testing
the impact of proposed changes in operating policies on train
service
-
Measuring
both theoretical and practical line capacity
-
Supporting
line rationalization studies
-
Planning
siding placement and gauge the impact of siding extensions and
removal
-
Studying
the impact of changes to speed limits, grades, signaling and
operating rules
-
Measuring
the impact of proposed train service modifications that include:
-
Increased
train volumes
-
Consist
variations in locomotive power and car counts
-
Maintenance
of way activities, identifying the optimal time to schedule MOW
track time with minimum impact on train service
-
Changes
to signal systems or other factors affecting train movement
authorities
For
more information on our line capacity related consulting services,
please click here.
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Merger
and Investment Analysis
Our
applied consulting team has directly assisted with five major merger and
privatization transactions, and we have seen our MultiRail®
software utilized in at least two additional transactions on an in-house
basis. This work has included development of proposed operating plans,
and evaluation of the resultant impact of the merger/acquisition on
operating costs, service, and the environment. In a number of
cases we have gone on to assist in the development of day 1 operating
plans for post-merger/acquisition start-up.
We have
a proven and tested capability to support activities of this type in a
timely, thorough, and professional manner, and our clients have
significantly benefited from the improved accuracy of a MultiRail-based
analysis.
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Initial
Database Creation and Start-up Support
To use MultiRail®
effectively requires the development of an accurate and complete
representation of a railroad’s operating plan, and the development of
a strong understanding of how to use MultiRail®
efficiently and effectively to achieve corporate goals. Data
development requirements include a definition of the rail network,
traffic database, blocking plan, and train schedules. But the ability to
assemble the data does not guarantee a successful outcome. Also
required is an understanding of how to structure the data, sort and
present the traffic movements, analyze the blocking plan, design the
train schedules, and study the impacts of daily variations in traffic
volumes.
We have found that undertaking
project jointly staffed by our applied consultants and the client’s
personnel is the most effective way to introduce MultiRail®
to an organization, and ensure that it is used effectively in the long
term.
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Custom
and Off-the-shelf Training Courses
MultiModal regularly provides two
and three day training courses to its customers in the use of MultiRail®.
These generally include both presentations and extensive hands-on use
based on written tutorials linked to a specific MultiRail®
database. The tutorials and databases are often customized for
individual clients so that they use actual data and examples drawn from
the railroad’s own operating plan.
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