Berne-Lötschberg Railways (BLS) is the second largest integrated railway company in Switzerland. The main activities of BLS AG include regional passenger transportation by train and bus, ship transportation in the Bernese Oberland, and rail freight operations. The BLS infrastructure contains the 34.6 kilometer long Lötschberg Base Tunnel that came into operation in 2007.
The regional passenger transportation division was in the situation that internal and external reporting was requiring too much effort whilst failing to meet requirements for transparency. As various different structures were being used, it was barely possible to make a comparison between plan and actual figures.
ESPRiT supported BLS with the conceptualization and implementation of a new 4-level contribution margin accounting system for the planning and analysis of services and activities in regional passenger transportation. Once the specialized detailed concept had been drawn up, the route profitability system was implemented in SAP BI Integrated Planning. One important data source for this is the resource planning and controlling system RailOpt from the company Qnamic.
The new route profitability system enables the regional passenger transportation operators to evaluate planning and scheduling more quickly and with a higher quality level in RailOpt, to analyze schedule changes, and to control operations in the current reporting period. Detailed monthly reporting at the level of the routes (products) or sub-routes makes it possible to recognize variance without delay and to derive appropriate measures. In addition, the external reporting system depicts the requirements of the public authorities that are responsible for ordering transportation services.
The support ESPRiT provided, from the concept to the implementation, made it possible for the project to be executed in a small, efficient team. An important success factor was the way of thinking, regarding both the business processes and the technical solutions. With their extensive experience in the railways business, the project members also demonstrated the sensitivity required for this subject.