R A I LT R AC K - The Railways Archive

3.5 3.6
3.5 Year 2000 compliance and
information technology
We are working with the rest of the rail industry to
implement a plan to achieve Year 2000 compliance on critical
systems,the first stage of which has been successfully
implemented.Between April and December 1998, we made
52 critical information systems compliant,with the remaining
53 planned for adjustment between January and August
1999.During the same period,5,200 types of equipment,
potentially susceptible to the ‘millennium bug’have been
investigated,though few have been shown to be non-
compliant.Remedial work on non-compliant equipment is
under way, and planned for completion by the summer of
1999.Up until December 1998, we spent £41.8M on
achieving Year 2000 compliance for critical systems.We are
now confident that all critical systems will be compliant in
time for the new millennium.
In the past year, we have introduced a new, integrated
national train-planning system to streamline and speed up
the process of handling bids for train paths from train
operating customers and making offers of train paths to
them.We have also introduced a new corporate financial
management system to improve handling of suppliers’
accounts and our accounting processes.
We have made provision in our financial plan for the
replacement of inherited IT systems in the medium term.
3.6 Rebalancing our investment
programme
One of the early reactions to our 1998 NMS was that the
expenditure on enhancements was disappointing and did not
address sufficiently the needs of our customers.We
responded swiftly to that by rebalancing our investment
programme for 1998/99.In consultation with customers, we
altered our spend profile from £1.21bn on renewals and
£130M on enhancements to £1.14bn and £310M
respectively. We report on pages 30 and 31 and in the
Route Strategies on our progress against this modified
programme, rather than the original.
In consultation with
customers, we altered
our spend profile from
£1.21bn on renewals
and £130M on
enhancements to
£1.14bn and £310M
respectively
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