Carlisle Cleaning was contracted by Alstom Ireland, in January 2010 as the sole supplier to provide tram and depot cleaning services throughout the entire LUAS fleet and depot locations. The contract has progressed since commencement and we now provide a number of additional services, including tram stop and track cleaning services – which makes Carlisle not just a fleet cleaning provider, but an integrated maintenance provider too.
Tram Cleaning
Carlisle undertakes overnight tram cleaning services to all 66 Citadis Fleet Trams. Out of the 66 Trams, 40 are stabled at Redcow and 26 at Sandyford depots. During the day a team of operatives provide a process engineered multi-sequence of works throughout their shift. This removes inefficiency and wasted resources which arise from operatives allocated to individual or single tasks. The first task our operatives undertake is the initial depot cleaning at the beginning of the day, where the depot and pits are fully cleaned.
On completion of the depot cleaning activity, the deep cleaning of the vehicles allocated to receive the 60- day deep clean takes place. Throughout the day operatives are deployed to commence litter picks of the trams in service. As the trams are walkthrough the operatives are able to undertake the litter pick and then
depart at the next stop once finished.
The trams are very frequent (every five minutes), so the operatives are able to move from tram to tram very easily. Once the litter picking is completed, the daily turnaround cleaning occurs. The trams are heavily utilised during peak and rush hour, however, they come back to the depots in the afternoon in preparation for the rush hour at the end of the day. Our operatives undertake litter picking, cleaning and spot mopping to ensure standards are high whilst the fleet is in service.
Track Cleaning and Tram Stop Cleaning
In addition to the tram operation, we also provide track cleaning to the whole of the 37.5 km track system. This involves the cleaning of all track types, including embedded, ballast, conventional, plinth grass track and 47 tram stop interchanges across the network. Our services enable the safe and continual running of the infrastructure. Our team of five operatives work five nights a week (Sunday – Thursday), typically in two teams between the hours of 10pm and 6am. Prior to contract award, the contract suffered from poor standards of cleaning service throughout the network infrastructure. Our process engineering teams and the client Alstom undertook a Kaizen time and motion study to all the cleaning services provided to analyse this problem further. The incumbent, staffed according to the client’s peaks at the beginning and at the end of the day, with some work (including deep cleans) being undertaken at night. However, the short shift attendance of two hours and allocation to individual tasks, lead to reduced productivity upon attendance. We changed the resourcing of the contract to include fewer full time dedicated operatives that undertook a carefully programmed sequence of works.
Since contract award, Carlisle has completely re-engineered the contract to include a smaller number of highly skilled operatives. This has resulted in an increase in staff motivation, a reduction in lighting costs due to the use of daytime cleaning and more importantly a higher standard of service to the client. To ensure this is consistently achieved, we introduced monthly KPIs to report on the contract’s operational and health and safety performance. These are assessed by 12 joint audits throughout the year by Carlisle and Alstom’s client Transdev. Our consistent delivery of high-quality cleaning services to Alstom Luas consistently surpasses their 75% benchmark, with excellent results of 100% regularly achieved through auditing – a testament to the high standard of service we provide.
