1. Wewantedabrandthatwaswell
knownsothestafftrustit.Wechose
Samsungbecauseofthebrand,their
reputation,theproductandpricepoint.
Adel Al-Shehab
Head of IT,
CrossCountry, Arriva Trains Wales,
Arriva TrainCare
Through the use of mobile technology, Arriva
looked at alternative methods for distributing
the information. It concluded a move from
paper to electronic formats would be both
appreciated by drivers and save the company
tens of thousands of pounds a year on print and
distribution costs. “We wanted to transform our
processes to reduce cost and our impact on
Revolutionisingtraindriverdocumentation
Samsung
The challenge:
To transform the way train drivers
access essential operating manuals
Arriva UK Trains has 14 years’ experience of
running trains and is one of the primary train
operating businesses in the UK. It currently
operates five major contracts covering 14%
of the UK market. Arriva’s UK train operating
companies are CrossCountry, Chiltern Railways,
Arriva Trains Wales and Grand Central Railway.
It has also just won the Northern rail franchise
contract, and, in total, Arriva UK Trains now
employs around 3,000 drivers across its
different train services.
For each railway service there’s a complex
set of rules and regulations, laid out in Rule
Books and Appendices. On top of these there
are weekly and periodic notices consisting of
several hundreds of pages covering varying
geographical areas of the network. There are
also detailed operating and fault finding manuals
for each type of train. The company provides
each driver with a hard copy of this weighty
compendium of manuals and information
covering all the information they require.
Drivershavetocarrythemajorityofthese
publicationsaroundwiththemasalegal
requirement.Theinformationisprintedonquality-
boundA5andrunstothousandsofpages.The
vitaldocumentsaresobigandbulkytheyhaveto
becarriedaroundinalargewheelietypebag.
The documentation is not only inconvenient
to carry around but also incredibly expensive
to print and update. On top of this, it takes a
great deal of time and administrative effort to
get updates of the publications out to drivers.
It currently costs Arriva CrossCountry alone
around £80k a year to print this material and
keep it up to date.
The customer
Major transport solutions provider Arriva, which
runs a handful of train operating companies in the
UK – CrossCountry, Chiltern Railways, Arriva Trains
Wales and Grand Central.
The challenge
To replace Arriva’s process of printing bulky
operating manuals and rulebooks for its drivers
with a lightweight tablet computer and digital text.
Samsung products and services
• 650 x Samsung Tab 4.
Benefits
• Huge cost savings, with Arriva moving away
from administering the printing, updating and
distribution of printed publications to managing
the distribution of digital information accessed
through Samsung Note tablets.
• High quality, cost effective lightweight devices
that are well liked by Arriva’s drivers.

2. The drivers have
really embraced
the technology and
have welcomed the
introduction of the
tablets. They are
actively using the
devices to improve and
check their knowledge
and skills.
Adel Al-Shehab
Head of IT,
CrossCountry, Arriva
Trains Wales, Arriva
TrainCare
the environment and to enable staff to receive
updates much more quickly,” sums up Adel
Al-Shehab, Head of IT for CrossCountry, Arriva
Trains Wales and Arriva TrainCare.
Arrivabeganaprocessofinvestigatingits
optionsandevaluatingallthevendorsproviding
mobiledevicesforstoringandaccessingdigital
publications.Followingthisevaluationperiod,Arriva
madeacommitmenttoinvestinSamsungtablets.
“We evaluated different manufacturers and
wanted to standardise on one product. We
wanted something that’s small enough to fit into
a coat pocket and that represented good value
for money. We obviously wanted the right brand
as well – one that was well known so the staff
trust it. We also didn’t want to go for the absolute
top-end as this wouldn’t be the most cost
effective option. We chose Samsung because
of the brand, their reputation and of course the
product and price point,” says Al-Shehab.
The solution:
An initial rollout to Arriva of 650
Samsung Tab 4 tablets
Arriva’s first batch of Samsung tablets has been
rolled out to CrossCountry train drivers, with
650 Tab 4 devices now being used.
The company is using enterprise mobility
management platform AirWatch to look
after the management of publications and
synchronise updates of information across
its fleet of Tab 4s. Each of the devices is
synchronised via Wi-Fi every morning prior to
the driver beginning their shift, ensuring they
have access to the very latest information.
The size and weight of the tablet compared to
the weighty printed publications Arriva used
before has had an immediate positive impact
on these drivers. “Many are now carrying much
smaller bags with them and this is seen as a
welcome improvement from the large amount
of documentation that was previously carried,”
says Al-Shehab.
And the benefits for Arriva’s administrative
processes are just as notable: “Having
documentation issued to a driver electronically
enables our driver management team to
receive a notification electronically when
a document has been received and read,”
explains Al-Shehab. “This reduces overheads in
administration and auditing and is something
we are looking to implement soon.”
As well as enabling drivers to use the tablets
as a digital replacement to printed operating
publications, Arriva is also extending the use
of the Tab 4 tablets to give drivers access to
email and keep them informed of the latest
developments and company news. “It’s
modernising our way of working and enables
both employee engagement and better
communications – it’s really helping to make
these remote workers feel part of the wider
organisation,” says Al-Shehab.
Another benefit is the tablets are substantially
increasing the amount of time drivers engage
with the material in the operating publications
compared to before, says Al-Shehab: “The
drivers have really embraced the technology
and have welcomed the introduction of the
tablets. They are actively using the devices to
improve and check their knowledge and skills;
it’s no longer frowned on by fellow drivers to
be reading such documentation in the mess
room as this can now be done discreetly on the
Samsung tablets.”
Contact details
Visit: www.samsung.com/uk/business
Email: BusinessUK@samsung.com
Tel: +44 (0) 1932 455 000
Samsung Electronics (UK) Ltd
Samsung House, 1000 Hillswood Drive,
Chertsey, Surrey, KT16 0PS, United Kingdom
The results:
The continual ongoing investment in
Samsung tablets throughout 2016
Following the successful introduction of
Samsung tablets for CrossCountry train drivers,
the company is now planning on expanding
the rollout. As Al-Shehab explains: “We’re not
sure which model we’ll go for as yet, but it’ll be
equivalent to the Tab 4. We are planning to extend
the use of tablets to other parts of our business,
and we’re also exploring ruggedised devices,
too.” “Our immediate plans are for a further 300
devices for our CrossCountry catering staff and
150 for our fleet maintenance engineers at Arriva
Trains Wales,” reveals Al-Shehab. “We’re also
planning to invest in more devices in our new
Northern rail franchise over the coming year.”