Suzy, Drinker Of Coffee

Work & Drainspotting

Regular patrons of London Underground’s Waterloo & City Line know it semi-affectionately as “the drain”. Well, thanks to Simon Cooper for posting this to Tubegroup, but a slightly unusual “Invitation To Tender” has recently appeared on the EU Overseas Journal…

UK-London: wireless telecommunications system

2007/S 45-055783

II.1.5) Short description of the contract or purchase(s):
London Underground (LU) requires the provision of a trial project of
mobile telephony and data services coverage in underground areas on
the Waterloo and City Line station platforms at Bank and Waterloo
stations and the tunnel section in between.

On completion of installation works at the trial sites there will be
a period of evaluation of the performance, suitability, reliability
and maintenance of the installation and services. LU will assess the
results from the trial to determine whether to provide mobile
telephony and data services on the LU network.

Enhancement to LU's customer experience will be significantly
increased with mobile technologies facilitating targeted travel
information 'on the move' in the underground environment to all
customers with a mobile handset. Hearing impaired customers will have
the ability for travel announcements directed to their mobile phones
in a visual format to warn of real time disruptions and line
closures. In addition streaming media will be available on mobile
handsets to keep customers occupied whilst travelling as well as
being able to surf the internet whilst waiting for their train.

Background information:

Current UK cellular telephony is provided by a number of operators
using GSM, GPRS and similar derived technologies including 3G.
UK coverage for mobile users across most operator networks is nearing
100 %.

This coverage includes many difficult environmental areas, such as
road tunnels. Currently mobile and data services coverage is not
available within the underground sections of the LU network including
certain stations, station concourses, passenger walkways, platforms,
trains and train running tunnels. Research has shown that there is
considerable demand and interest from the travelling public and
Mobile Operators for the provision of these services.
Overview of services:
a) Mobile telephony coverage:
LU requires the provision of trial mobile telephony coverage to the
Waterloo and City Line platforms at Bank and Waterloo stations along
with tunnel section in between.
b) Data services coverage:
LU also requires the provision of trial high speed data services
using the same basic operational infrastructure. These services will
include the widest possible range of additional services with
particular interest in mobile and wireless network connectivity
solutions such as WiFi and WiMAX, DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast), DVB
(Digital Video Broadcast).

It is envisaged that the trial services will be provided through a
Neutral Host solution, where a single prime contractor organisation
provides and operates the technical solution and is responsible for
distributing the mobile and data services into the underground. The
contractor will be required to design, install, operate and maintain
the appropriate infrastructure in accordance with the requirements of
LU's Invitation to Tender (ITT) and LU would pay the contractor's
associated costs which will be bid as part of the tender exercise.
The contractor will be required to offer the services to all Mobile
Network Operators for the period of the trial.

At the end of the trial, the contractor will be required to provide
LU with a number of reports which will be set out in the ITT but
which will cover the design, installation, performance, suitability,
maintenance, usage and financial viability of the services including
any lessons learnt and a report on possibly extending the services LU
network wide. The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) resulting from
the trial and the reports, will vest in LU. This information will be
used by LU to determine whether to proceed with a network wide
implementation of the services and if so, to use the information to
feed into any ITT for further LU implantation.

It is envisaged that if the trial is successful, and LU decides to
extend the coverage, a further competition will be undertaken to
appoint a concessionaire to extend the services to other parts of the
LU network whereby the concessionaire would design, install, fund,
operate, maintain and upgrade appropriate infrastructure and provide
a revenue to LU. In return the concessionaire would be granted a
right to exploit the provision of mobile telephony and data services
to third parties in the areas of coverage on the LU network.
TfL and its subsidiaries actively promote green procurement
throughout its procurement chain and welcome applications from
environmentally responsible candidates committed to the principles of
reducing, reusing and recycling resources and to the practices of
buying recycled.

So, why did TfL choose “the drain” for the experiment? Well, it’s just had it’s major multi-month refurbishment, so it should have no engineering type work to screw up the experiment. It’s a fairly short line – two stations i.e. Waterloo & Bank, and a tunnel under the Thames in between – and self-contained in many ways. Perhaps ideal, but the short journey time (especially since refurbishment) might mean getting online takes just about as the journey!

So, why do I mention this? Well, as you probably gather (even just from the “choice cuts” you read on this blog!), TfL have a habit of issuing too many press releases. Back in 2000, when I worked on the tube, was the first press release about the Connect project, mentioning you may well be able to (in the future) use your mobile phone on the tube. This resulted in a passenger asking me when it would start, and which networks were compatible… very eager! As you can see, seven years later and the tenders have gone out… wonder if she still has the same phone that she did then? Must be a bit of a brick now… even by my standards! (Well I’ve upgraded…) Still can’t get my wap to work… so I’d not lose anything if I went “down the drain” now…

Labels: london, transport, work

posted by Suzy Scott @ 23:31