London underground as a customer role for equipment report Essay

London underground as a customer role for equipment report - Essay Example The tube services a record 270 number of stations which is the largest underground network in the world and also covers around 402 kilometres. Acting as a pioneer in its design, the design of LU has been adopted by several underground networks across the world. Almost 86% of the passenger fares are covered by the tube which makes it stand out as the main traffic tool in the nation (Urbaneye, 2002, p.7). London underground’s customer role for equipments London underground having a relatively old infrastructure should consider prospects of up gradation of its equipments mainly required for comfort, safety and security of their passengers. This raises the role of London underground as a customer for its equipments and subsequent consideration of its equipment reports. The major equipments of London underground are the CCTV camera, ticket machines, support systems for ventilation, emergency alarms, availability of reservations or wheel chairs for senior citizens, handicapped, etc (Kelly, 1999, p.4). As a customer to its equipment report, London underground needs to at its suppliers, competition for the contract of supply of equipments, whether the equipments are customized for the tube and the payment amount for equipments installed. Major suppliers of CCTV for installation in London Underground include market leaders like Panasonic, Sony, Eneo, British Security Industry association, etc. The suppliers need to bid for the contract on London Underground’s decision of installation of new CCTV cameras or up-gradation of the existing system (Source Security, 2013, p.1). The supplier offering the best competitive price and quality of information is awarded with the contract. For example, For example, Sony has installed around 5000 CCTV cameras by 1996. In 2002, a 500 camera system has been installed with a three-room capacity for controlling activity in order to enable LU with monitoring capacity of health and safety of passengers, detection and prevention of crime and closed circuit surveillance. The CCTV surveillance system used in London underground as installed and supplied by Sony are the one’s used for general business surveillance (Glanz and Nacerodien, 1996, P.1). Thus the CCTV system has not been much effective in large underground station in tracking activities like pick-pocketing, bag-snapping, etc. However, the CCTV has been able to detect crime in small underground stations. The effect of CCTV old system wears out with time as offenders learn about their position of tracking. Looking at upgrading the infrastructure, London underground announced a one-billion pound sterling program for station regeneration of which 40 billion pound sterling was spent on CCTV installation in 1997-98. Apart from CCTV, the London underground also installs ticket machines which passengers can use through top up oyster cards. The major supplier of all ticketing machine in London Underground is Cubic Transportations System Inc. The emerg ency alarms are supplied by manufacturers like Vesda and Wagner. In order to upgrade its old transportation system in the face of increasing passengers, London Underground has upgraded its WaterLoo and City line in 2006 with five trains instead of existing four, Victoria line now includes a fleet of 47 higher capacity with better ventilation capacity than before (Fire Systems Ltd, 2013, p.1).