Balfour Beatty’s rail teams have been honoured at two industry award ceremonies; the UK Rail Business Awards and the London Transport Awards. At the UK Rail Business Awards the company was recognised for its public relations efforts as part of the three-way partnership working on the Tyne and Wear Metro. Infrastructure owner Nexus, Balfour Beatty Rail as the main contractor and train operator DB Regio worked together to look after passengers and neighbours before and during a month-long £12m track renewal project in the heart of Newcastle. The extensive public engagement around the project was named PR Campaign of the Year, with judges hailing it as setting best practice for the UK rail industry. The campaign, which was also runner-up in the Customer Information and Marketing category, involved a combination of modern and traditional communications tactics – including engagement events on social media as well as in community halls – partnership with local media who gained ‘behind the scenes’ access, and even the use of a children’s entertainer. All three companies took part in engagement events to reach around 10,000 people living close to the works, and tens of thousands more who rely on Metro for their daily commute. Huw Lewis, Head of Communications at Nexus, which owns, manages and is modernising Metro in a £389m programme said: “We wanted to set new standards for public engagement around engineering works so we are delighted to be recognised in this way. “We were fortunate to be able to count on Balfour Beatty Rail and DB Regio to support us in planning and delivering an intensive public engagement programme in advance, and to deal with issues quickly as they arose during the work.” The London Transport Awards saw Track Partnership, a strategic alliance between London Underground and Balfour Beatty Rail, awarded the coveted title of ‘Most Innovative Transport Project’, as well as being shortlisted in the Transport Team/Partnership of the Year category. The judges were impressed with how innovations had helped Track Partnership to double its infrastructure replacement output whilst reducing disruption for passengers. This included introducing a number of low or non-disruptive methods of track renewal including forms of vacuum extraction of ballast, Fastclip rail systems, flash-butt welding and increased mechanisation. Steve Naybour, Business Performance and Improvement Manager for Track Partnership said: “We are proud to receive this external recognition for our drive for innovation. Track Partnership has now become so efficient that in just three weekend closures in January this year, we delivered the equivalent of 50% of the total output of just a few years ago. This not only represents increased value for London Underground but importantly, it also means less disruption for passengers.”
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 16:10:39 +0000
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