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improve service quality. In the beginning, several ardship, and even quality and popularity of their
data elements were missing or inaccurate. For exam- website. Achievements are reported through the
ple, many train delays were falsely attributed to company website and in company literature, as is
operator errors because the system could not distin- the achievement of ISO certification in business
guish vehicle faults from operator errors. In response, processes.
the operations management installed additional
vehicle sensors to record all operator control inputs. KMB
Taipei Metro management was then able to identify
KMB uses a software program to collect and
and correct vehicle failures that had been previously
analyze data for measuring continuous improve-
obscured.
ment. Management is responsible for reviewing the
data on a monthly basis and holds monthly perfor-
REPORTING STRUCTURE mance management meetings to discuss data trends
and areas for possible course correction.
Hong Kong
KMB then provides its stakeholders with exten-
MTR sive annual reports that show trends in operational
indicators. Some of the common operational statis-
MTR produces an interim report, annual report,
tical information includes the following:
and summary report every year. These reports illus-
trate the fiscal health, organizational direction, and · Total number of passengers carried for the
independent auditor's input. The interim report gives year (ridership),
a snapshot. The annual report delves into 10-year · Total number of bus routes operated at the end
data comparisons, human resources, remuneration, of the year,
and reports from top management. MTR's quarterly · Fleet size,
"Performance Achievements" is a point of pride and · Bus kilometers operated for the year,
is easily accessible online. A quick glance at the 2008
· Total fleet capacity at the end of the year,
fourth quarter shows MTR actually exceeded expec-
· Fleet age,
tations in areas such as train service delivery, passen-
· Achievement of schedule (on-time perfor-
ger journey on-time performance, train punctuality,
ticket machine reliability, and escalator reliability, all mance),
of which scored over 99%. Internally, there are com- · Average percentage of lost trips,
munications from "top [management] to shop [floor]" · Average fleet utilization for the year,
and vice versa, all captured by scorecards for the divi- · Operational capability--percentage of actual
sion, department, and section. number of bus departures compared with
Bus licensees compile data and submit it to the scheduled number of bus departures during
Transport Department annually, or more frequently peak hours,
as they see fit. An example of this is with the report- · Average number of bus defects per vehicle for
ing of average number of bus defects found during the year,
spot checks by the Transport Department. Through · Mechanical reliability,
annual spot checks, government regulators sample · Average number of bus accidents (per million
2% of the entire fleet per week. All modes report on vehicle-kilometers),
ridership and headways. Measurements are acces- · Total service rationalization items for the year
sible on the MTR website, as well as in its annual (frequency reductions, vehicle reductions, and
corporate prospectus. Internally, each head of depart- route reorganization),
ment sends monthly reports to the board of directors. · Total service improvement items for the year,
Bus cleanliness reporting is based on direct complaints · Average number of customer complaints per
lodged, and that is recorded and reported by the mar- million passenger trips,
keting and planning groups that study issues concern- · Total passenger liaison program (passenger
ing ridership. attitude services and user group meetings atten-
The well-polished corporate image of these bus dance), and
companies is publicized through awards that rec- · Bus shelter construction (number of bus shel-
ognize their user friendliness, environmental stew- ters available at the end of the year).
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Other operational performance statistics include lights the strategic plan that has been laid out by the
revenues, operating cost, profits, and fixed asset Transport Department.
reports. In addition, the Transport Department also has a
Other avenues for reporting performance include website (www.td.gov.hk) that has a wealth of infor-
the KMB website (www.kmb.hk). The website pro- mation for the general public.
vides customers, stakeholders, and employees with
vast amounts of information regarding KMB perfor- MTR
mance, as well as other corporate information.
MTR has very sophisticated mechanisms (tech-
Hong Kong Transport Department nology) to report system performance. One of the
more significant strategic management performance
There are two primary performance reporting systems is the balanced scorecard reporting system.
structures in place within the Transport Department. The balanced scorecard was originally used at
First, the department holds performance meetings MTR as a test model in the company's engineering
with the service providers/franchises to discuss the department because of the readily available data
performance indicators in detail. The meetings iden- used for inputs. MTR executive management was
tify achievements, as well as shortfalls, and identify very pleased at the results and intrigued with the
root causes for performance measures; a discus- possibility of using the balanced scorecard approach
sion on continuous improvement is also held. As part for elevating performance and continuous improve-
of the license agreement, the Transport Department ment; in 1999, the balanced scorecard was adopted
establishes a set of performance indicators for the throughout MTR.
franchise companies to report and follow. The per- The MTR balanced scorecard incorporates the
formance management system in place ensures that traditional business perspectives, including the finan-
all service providers are delivering service according cial, customer, and internal process perspectives.
to expectations. There are several categories that are In addition, MTR decided to name their human
used to report performance, including reliability (bus capital perspective "efficiency," incorporating
availability, lost trips), efficiency (bus utilization), human resource principles. The efficiency perspec-
safety, cleanliness, environmental friendliness, and tive includes objectives such as: competent staff, opti-
user friendliness (customer complaints, passenger mized manpower, and efficient organization. Because
liaison meetings, passenger information at bus termi- MTR is a vital public transportation element in Hong
nus, and passenger information at stops). Kong, the company also decided to include a safety
Second, the Transport Department has the respon- perspective, with the goal of elevating the safety
sibility to provide information to the general public commitments to the public.
regarding the status of strategic initiatives outlined in MTR uses the principles of the balanced score-
the sustainability plans. Data are collected frequently
card to develop its annual reports, announce perfor-
to assess strategy effectiveness and to determine
mance objectives and measurements on its website
future decisions regarding strategic initiatives. The
(www.mtr.com/hk), and communicate the scorecard
Transport Department uses several avenues to dis-
results to its own staff. In addition, the balanced
seminate information. The Transport Department has
scorecard has been extended to the desktop level, so
several publications that outline progress of initia-
tives. One such publication is Hong Kong Transport that employees understand their contribution to per-
40 Years,7 which outlines a timeline of transport his- formance management.
tory and sustainable planning efforts. The second sig- MTR continues its quest for excellence by par-
nificant publication is titled A Transport Strategy for ticipating in benchmarking groups such as CoMET
the Future: Hong Kong Moving Ahead,8 which high- and Nova.
Singapore
7
Hong Kong Transport 40 Years is available at www.td.gov.hk/
filemanager/en/publication/td-booklet-final-251108.pdf. In Singapore, SMRT uses a more formal (and less
8
A Transport Strategy for the Future: Hong Kong Moving Ahead public) mechanism for reporting performance, con-
is available at www.thb.gov.hk/eng/psp/publications/transport/ sisting of a set of monthly meetings held separately
publications/hk_move_ahead_txt.htm. for three main areas of reporting: general perfor-
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mance, financial performance, and operations per- · Fare gate (downtime no more than 500 hours
formance. A monthly report for each of the three per 10,000 hours of operation),
areas is then submitted to LTA, the regulator, with the · Escalator (downtime no more than 100 hours
required detailed performance statistics. per 10,000 hours of operation),
On a quarterly basis, the aggregated information · Lift (no more than 200 hours per 10,000 hours
on SMRT's operating and financial performance is of operation), and
published and distributed to the shareholders. SMRT · Customer injury rate (no more than 0.4 injuries
also reports all of the performance measures in a year- per million customers).
end report to shareholders. Since the government of
Singapore is the majority shareholder in SMRT, this In addition, PTC also requires SMRT to publish per-
report is also functionally a report to the government. formance standards regarding reliability, loading,
SMRT is careful to represent the data accurately, but safety, availability, and information/communication.
also to present its performance in the best light, high- If performance measures are not adhered to, PTC has
lighting important system performance trends over the authority to impose fines on SMRT.
the past 5 years and giving particular emphasis to
major accomplishments.
On the bus side, PTC has quality-of-service stan- Kuala Lumpur
dards, which comprise six main factors: operations
reliability, passenger loading, safety, service infor- RapidKL compiles performance statistics for a
mation, service availability, and service integration variety of purposes. The most important is internal
(span of service). These standards are required report- management. Service punctuality (on-time perfor-
ing items as part of the operator's route authority. mance), a measurement of actual minutes of delay per
Two items, headway adherence and average loading, train, is reported as an annual average in promotional
are reported daily. materials, by line. Service reliability (expressed as a
LTA demonstrates various ways of communicat- percentage) is also reported annually. Service fre-
ing success surrounding the three strategic thrusts. quency is reported as average headway for each of the
Because its master plan is a people-centered plan, weekday key time periods (such as morning peak and
LTA realizes the importance of keeping the public midday).
informed of the progress toward its goals. The master Safety and operating statistics specified as part of
plan is posted on the Internet (www.lta.gov.sg/ltmp/ the 21 key performance indicators are reported quar-
LTMP.html). The LTA website (www.lta.gov) also terly to the board of directors and to the government
provides a lot of information regarding performance for compliance purposes. RapidKL is currently in the
in relation to its strategic initiatives. In addition, process improving the data flow so that monthly
there is a quarterly newsletter, called Connect, that reports can be developed for both internal monitor-
informs the public about initiatives and conveys ing and external reporting. To comply with its oper-
other messages from LTA. LTA's annual report dis- ating agreement with Prasarana, RapidKL must report
cusses yearly progress, financial information, and these key indicators, and the indicators must meet the
investments. previously agreed-upon targets.
The Public Transportation Council is responsible On the bus side, ridership and route productivity
for delivering performance measures on bus service. statistics are used internally to make bus route ratio-
The PTC also publishes annual reports to demon- nalization determinations. These statistics are cur-
strate the performance of the bus service providers in rently also reported annually. Bus ridership has seen
Singapore. tremendous growth from 2006 to 2008--reaching
SMRT reports a set of agreed-upon rail perfor- 400,000/day, up from 130,000--as a result of fare
mance measures to PTC, including the following: initiatives and route restructuring. However, transit
· Train arrivals (within 2 min of schedule), mode share continues to remain relatively low at
· Train departures (96% within 2 min of 19% of all metropolitan area trips. Because of on-
schedule), going restructuring and investment, the number of
· Train service availability (at least 96%), buses in the active fleet and the number of bus routes
· General ticketing machine (downtime no more are seen as important measures of progress and are
than 500 hours), reported annually.
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