Hong Kong is one of the world’s leading financial centres and the gateway to mainland China. It’s also a major tourist destination, attracting more than 29 million visitors each year. Every day nearly 4 million passengers travel on the MTR rapid transit system, which links Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories.Thales’ working relationship with MTR stretches back nearly 20 years.
CUSTOMER NEEDS
The MTR network is Hong Kong’s transportation backbone and includes nine rail routes and a light railway network, together totalling more than 200km. MTR’s priorities are the provision of safe and efficient operations for its passengers. And as a public listed company, MTR is under an obligation to produce a return for its shareholders.
THALES SERVICES
Thales works in partnership with MTR to help it achieve its operational, commercial and regulatory goals. In addition to supplying many of MTR’s critical systems, Thales also provides comprehensive services, including long-term maintenance and continuing upgrades for signalling, supervision and ticketing systems.
Services are delivered locally by a dedicated workforce of 75 Thales’ people including engineers, technicians and supervisors. Thales also provides a workshop facility where repairs on system modules are carried out.
I think Thales is a good partner. The company is quite flexible in adapting to the requirements of the customer
Control and supervision services Thales provides corrective and preventive maintenance services for control and supervision systems on two major lines, with services that cover both software and hardware – including routers, servers and control/supervision computers.
Thales also provides consultancy and system enhancements. Examples include upgrading existing systems with new functionality – such as passenger information – and hardware improvements that prolong the life of systems.
Ticketing services
Thales maintains ticketing systems on five key MTR lines, including ticket vending machines, automatic vending machines, ticket office machines, gates and
station computers.
Upgrade services
Thales recently completed the installation of a new fibre optic communications network to replace an existing copper cable system on MTR’s West Rail Line. Thales’ solution included design, delivery, installation and testing of new integrated fibre optic modem hardware. The upgrade improves the reliability of all communication links and was delivered with no interruption to revenue service.
CUSTOMER BENEFITS
• Asset enhancement – continuous improvements and upgrades to add value
• Availability – with expert maintenance to optimise up time
• Reliability – services delivered by a dedicated, locally-based workforce
CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE
Dialogue and partnership
“Truly speaking, I think Thales is a good partner. The company is quite flexible in adapting to the requirements of the customer – that is important, because we have complicated control systems. Sometimes the client cannot reach into all our requirements in the specification documents. So we need some ongoing discussions, some ongoing dialogue, with the contractors to finalise the requirements, or to define what a system should be.”
K M Tsang, Senior Engineer, MTR