From one transportation system to another
The Limburg multimodal contract: demonstrating successful integration of several different modes of transit, and advancing the cause of intermodal transportation
Veolia Transport has been operating the integrated mass transit system serving southern, northern and central Limburg, a province of the Netherlands, since December 10, 2006. The aim of the contract is to coordinate train, bus and taxi services.
There is a growing trend among the competent transportation authorities in the Netherlands to contract with mass transit operators to manage and coordinate more than one mode of urban and regional transit within a given territory. This requirement features increasingly in their invitations to tender and their ensuing contracts. Instead of competing with each other within a given area, rail and bus services are being required to coordinate and complement each other. In city areas, similarly, the aim is that taxis should no longer compete with the existing bus system. The aim is to coordinate all these different transit modes and get them working together. This implies development an integrated rather than a segmented or batch approach.
The capital of Limburg province is Maastricht. It has a population of over 1 million and covers an area of 2,209 sq. km. Veolia Transport employs 1,125 people, together with 235 buses, 24 trains and 250 taxis in performing this contract. They transport around 31 million passengers throughout the province.
The first multimodal control center in the Netherlands
A control center has been set up in the neighborhood of Maastricht to coordinate the trains, buses and taxis, currently the only multimodal control center in the Netherlands. The center is staffed by three separate teams specializing respecting in the three transportation modes. Thanks to this joint control center, if a train is delayed, the person in charge of the rail service can directly inform his colleague in charge of the bus service, who can in turn warn the bus drivers to adjust their speed accordingly. All of the control center's staff are shortly expected to be capable of tracking and controlling all three modes. Once that is the case the multimodal control center will form a single all-purpose team.
Similarly, a single computer-aided operating program will be deployed shortly for all three transport modes, the aim being to locate all vehicles—road and rail—and to be able to communicate with all operatives wherever they are. These different tools are daily helping to improve coordination between Veolia Transport's different transit modes and so strengthen their intermodality, in order to smooth our customers' journeys.
De la même manière, un seul logiciel de système d'aide à l'exploitation sera prochainement utilisé pour les trois types de services, l'objectif étant de pouvoir localiser tous les véhicules, routiers et ferroviaires, et de pouvoir communiquer avec l'ensemble des agents. Avec ces outils Veolia Transport concourt quotidiennement à l'amélioration de la coordination entre les modes de déplacement et renforce ainsi l'intermodalité de ses réseaux de transport pour faciliter les trajets de nos clients.