Rail crew planning and management is a complex and critical requirement for modern railways. Operators are required to balance the need for increased efficiency and competitiveness with the obligation to provide equitable working arrangements that comply with employment conditions and safety regulations. As operational environments continue to change and workforce expectations evolve, railways require crew management solutions that are reliable, flexible and purpose built for rail operations.
TPAC Rail Crew is a rail crew resource management solution developed to support these requirements. The system uses optimisation techniques to ensure that all timetable duties are covered by suitably qualified staff. These optimisation techniques are designed to improve efficiencies in crew planning and operations while maintaining compliance with regulatory and safety standards.
Addressing the Core Challenges of Rail Crew Management
Effective rail crew management involves more than simply allocating staff to services. Rail operators must manage fatigue, observe employment contracts, consider crew lifestyle requirements and ensure safety standards are consistently met. TPAC Rail Crew supports railways in managing these challenges by providing tools to create efficient crew shifts and rosters while assessing each roster line for the fatigue generated for the individual.
The system enables railways to observe employment contracts and safety regulations while also supporting lifestyle rostering that considers individual crew preferences. This approach allows operators to produce crew plans that are fair and equitable, while remaining compliant with operational and regulatory requirements. TPAC Rail Crew also supports railways in dealing with changing operational environments and assessing strategic options when planning for the future.
Optimisation and Decision Support Across Operations
TPAC Rail Crew includes automated generation of optimised crew shifts and rosters, allowing railways to manage planning more efficiently across the full planning horizon. The system provides comprehensive tools to manage changes as they occur, including the ability to respond quickly to train and crew disruptions.
Decision support tools within TPAC Rail Crew assist operators in resolving operational changes during the day of operation, helping to reduce the potential cost of disruptions. The system is also designed to support what if analysis, making it suitable for evaluating the impact of major timetable changes or contract negotiations.
A Complete and Modular Rail Crew Solution
TPAC Rail Crew is a modular system that allows railways to manage all aspects of crew operations within a single solution. It supports long term planning, day of operation management and payroll processing, providing an end to end crew management capability.
The system has been proven for both passenger railways, including intercity and long distance metro services, as well as freight and cargo railways. A flexible rules model allows the system to be closely aligned with the specific operational and regulatory requirements of individual rail operators. Standardised interfaces enable integration with existing IT environments, and data warehouse capabilities support reporting through tools such as Crystal Reports™. TPAC Rail Crew also includes an easy to use interface and browser based access to work data for crew.
Operational Outcomes Delivered by TPAC Rail Crew
TPAC Rail Crew delivers measurable operational outcomes for rail operators by improving crew efficiency and reducing the effort required for crew planning. The system supports equitable crew plans and improves operational decision making, helping to reduce crew related disruptions as well as standby and relief crew requirements.
TPAC Rail Crew also improves the management of period changes by minimising overtime usage and ensuring train coverage. Payroll processing is supported through controlled and automated generation of crew pay requirements, helping to reduce errors, disputes and administrative costs.
Developed by Constraint Technologies International
TPAC Rail Crew is developed by Constraint Technologies International, an Australian solutions and services company specialising in optimisation software for the transport, travel and logistics sector. CTI has over twenty years of experience building tightly integrated and mission critical systems and has spent more than a decade developing and maintaining optimisation solutions.
CTI is a technically driven organisation that invests heavily in research and development, both internally and in collaboration with university partners. The company applies its optimisation technology to complex customer problems and continuously improves the performance and capability of its systems using modern software engineering techniques. All CTI products are supported by professional and knowledgeable technical support teams.
Why TPAC Rail Crew
TPAC Rail Crew provides railways with a complete rail specific crew management solution designed to support efficient planning, operational decision making and payroll accuracy. By combining optimisation techniques, flexible rules modelling and practical decision support tools, TPAC Rail Crew enables rail operators to manage crew operations across the full lifecycle within a single integrated system.
For rail operators seeking a proven crew management solution that supports efficiency, fairness and regulatory compliance, TPAC Rail Crew delivers the capability required to manage modern rail crew operations with confidence.