We recently interviewed Sandy who has worked in the Tracsis Passenger Analytics (TPA) team from its beginnings and with International Women’s Day this week it seemed a good time to share her experiences of working in Tracsis.
TPA have over 400 casual staff, many of whom have been with us for many years and their role is vital to delivering passenger count surveys, market research and ticketless travel surveys. Sandy’s role is to organise all the staff shifts, logistics and act as the liaison between our client Project Managers and the army of staff who deliver the data collection projects. When she started in her role she used to phone every member of staff to schedule their work but now all that is done by email and she uses the Tracsis OfficeNet system control each job allowing staff to see their schedules online. They clock in and out of jobs with their supervisor out in the field who uses a smartphone app to record all the shifts.
Every project is different and that what makes her days interesting, that and working with so many different people throughout a day. The process is carefully controlled by Sandy to make sure people are in the right place at the right time so that client projects are delivered on time and meet our high standards of data quality. It takes experience to keep the wheels oiled, Sandy is one of our most experienced team members with over 13 years in our business, she started young!
We asked Sandy how her day varies throughout the year:
"Some of our survey work is still seasonal but as our portfolio expands there is hardly a day in the year that isn’t busy with client projects. The season really kicks off in mid-March with passenger count surveys needed for the timetable changes scheduled by the Train Operating companies (TOC) for May. This is repeated in September through to the December timetable changes. Summer brings its own challenging projects to deliver with our customer research and ticketless travel surveys for clients across the UK."
When Sandy started as a timetable planner on the railways in 2002 she was the first woman to join her team. The business has changed rapidly in recent years with far more women joining our industry. Her office team in Tracsis is now made up of 45% female staff and our casual staff who carry out the survey work with an increasing number of women wanting to join our data collection team across a range of surveys related to the railway and transport industry. Sandy says this is mostly due to word of mouth as people talk to friends about how rewarding the work is. It’s a people business so having a diverse workforce is important to Tracsis.
Sandy’s family are in the rail industry as well, her husband Pardeep is a train driver and third generation railway worker. Sandy has grown to love the railway industry, the people and the flexibility her Tracsis job offers to anyone with family commitments. She would recommend the business to anyone who likes a busy, problem solving, people orientated job working within a supportive, close knit team.
About Tracsis Passenger Analytics
Tracsis Passenger Analytics are a public transport market research and rail passenger counting business. We deliver a variety of data gathering services including traditional counts or passenger count surveys through face-to-face interviews and self-completion questionnaires. We are also at the forefront of new software technologies for collecting automatic passenger count (APC) data that provides an enhanced processing and matching capability, as well as reporting to the DfT specification. The data analysis we provide to TOC gives them the insights to carry out strategic forward planning in the rail industry.
