Railway Infrastructure Portfolio Management

Six months into its 2014 Railway Upgrade Plan, Anglia Route (UK) was forecasting a shortfall in outputs. A review identified that the delivery plan had not been tested robustly enough for deliverab...

Accepted manuscript doi: 10.1680/jinam.18.00012 8 roles: the route asset managers as client, the programme development managers as sponsor and the project managers and planners as the integrated planning team, also known as the controlling mind.
The role of the client, sponsor and client programme office is to ensure effective planning, integration, and delivery of its enhancement and renewal projects while operating a Railway. They need to balance the portfolio capital work with the Route wider objectives, access and resource constraints as well as the needs of its key stakeholders. This reorganisation aligns with the clienting guidelines developed by Network Rail and first published in July 2013 and the sponsoring operating model and project life cycle described in Network Rail's Sponsors' Handbook published internally in January 2016. The clienting guidelines were also embedded within Anglia Route via workshops involving the route asset managers, the sponsors and Anglia delivery partners. The key mindset shift was that by optimising and integrating the plan, key resources were considering the effects on operational performance during and after the planned asset interventions. This mindset drove the geographical packaging of capital works, and better consideration of the impact of standalone interventions on other asset disciplines. This led to better operational risk management.

Route client role
The route client is the directing mind during development and delivery, and is accountable for appointing a person to fulfil the sponsor role post transition, integrating, planning, and delivering enhancement and renewal projects in conjunction with their operations. This accountability exists throughout the life cycle of the project. The accountability of the Route client was refocused on promoting outcomes that at least protect current performance levels and adhere to long-term asset policy.

Sponsor role
The sponsor is the single focal point for day-to-day management on behalf of the client. He acts on behalf of the clients as the clients' agent, carrying out all the essential management activities including funding control, management of stakeholder relationships and expectations, requirements gathering, work acceptance, and project close-out. He sets the business requirements which the project must deliver using the client and route requirements templates, he owns, and actively manages delivery of outputs against, the business case. This allows the delivery organisation to be accountable to the sponsor for delivery of work to meet the sponsor's stated requirements to agreed scope, cost and schedule within the context of Network Rail's Governance for Railway Investment Projects framework.
The restructuring supported the sponsors in encouraging geographically integrated multi-discipline asset interventions which minimise customer disruptions and are in line with good asset management principles.

Integrated planning team
An integrated planning team was also established to act as a 'Controlling Mind'. Its role is to These changes are also supporting better communication and more collaborative behaviours within Network Rail, its key delivery partners, and customers.

Strategic and operational benefits
The route asset management team reorganisation and the creation of the controlling mind team brought clarity of purpose and clearer focus on our corporate objectives. They enabled a better understanding and ownership of the five-year programme with the sponsor team now managing with the support of the controlling mind team the day to day renewal programme and therefore allowing the route asset management team to focus on the timely delivery of the CP5 renewal projects remits and the early development of the CP6 renewal workbank. Anglia route now has a robust three years rolling integrated resource and access plan, and has a better Anglia Route is also now able to challenge validity of access requests within the required timescales to ensure robust timetabling and minimum customer disruption. We are able to minimise cancellation costs from contractors by identifying at T-47 incompatibility of works.
For example, through the T-47 workshop it was identified that that a large number of paths for haulage trains in and out of Whitemoor depot for work throughout Anglia conflicted