Projects and Roles Undertaken

Rail Franchise Procurement (Atkins/Transport Scotland) - Current, undertaking Project Managerrole procuring a 15 year rail franchise replacement contract by carving out a flagship service group from an existing rail franchise and establishing a new standalone franchise with focused management and major capital investment in new/refurbished rolling stock.

Settlement Agreement (City of Edinburgh Council) - In September 2011, undertook an instrumental role in negotiation and drafting of the Settlement Agreement between the Client and the construction contractors to turn the Edinburgh Tram Project around. The role completed in January 2012, with the acceptance of the depot, test track, delivery of the trams, and the transfer of operational responsibility for the trams.

Rolling Stock Procurement (Edinburgh Trams) - Up until January 2012, responsible for managing the procurement, contract negotiations and project management of the successful on time and budget delivery and testing of the fleet of CAF trams for Edinburgh, including the design, approvals, verification, test and commissioning to RSP2 and RVAR and establishment of the CAF local maintenance team.

Manchester Metrolink Bid (Keolis) - leader of a joint venture operating and maintenance franchise bid team for the Manchester Metrolink franchise(2007).
Docklands Light Railway Bid (Keolis) – undertook the role of Bid Director for a joint bid team comprising Keolis and Balfour Beatty supported by Jacobs for revenue modelling competing against the incumbent operator, his responsibilities included obtaining corporate bid sign-off, the development of financial model, bid strategy and delivery of innovative solutions.

Review of German Regional Rail Market (Serco) – evaluated the German regional rail franchise market (2002), developing a market entry strategy and shortlisting and evaluating the acquisition of an existing private sector German operator.

Copenhagen Metro Franchise (Serco) – leader of the bid and subsequent delivery of the operations and maintenance franchise of the Copenhagen Metro (1999) establishing the joint venture delivery company, the management system and processes and guiding the growth of the organisation from the initial 1 to 172 locally recruited and trained staff.

Docklands Light Railway Franchise (Serco) – as a key member of the in-house management bid team which in partnership with Serco won the first franchise of Docklands Light Railway turning it from a public sector organisation into a lean and high performing private sector franchise company generating significant profits from revenue surplus. Thus forming the foundation from which Serco after buying out the management team established a Rail Division which Alastair helped develop into an organisation capable of winning two Train Operating franchise contracts, three light rail and metro franchises and a rail infrastructure maintenance contract.

Docklands Light Railway Lewisham Extension Concession (DLR Ltd) – member of the client team which developed the specification for and tendered the Lewisham Extension concession to DLR (1996). The concession was awarded to a consortium which completed the project on time and on budget under the clients supervision and the resulting cross river revenues significantly improved the commercial performance of the DLR by balancing the bidirectional passenger demand flows.

JFK Airport people mover Bid (Raytheon) – managed the establishment of a bid team to provide the operations and maintenance section of a combined DBOM bid with Raytheon, AnsaldoBreda and Union Switch and Signal for the New York Port Authority. This involvement taught a critical lesson on how important it is to be aware of the local politics and political lobbying.

Hudson Bergen Tram (Raytheon) – invited to join the Raytheon bid team for the DBOM bid for a new tramway in New Jersey. Along with tram manufacturer Kinki Sharyio we helped the team to develop a successful bid in particular by undertaking a ‘red team review’ of the bid documents prior to submission for consistency, compliance and flagging up the unique selling points.

San Francisco MUNI (San Francisco Municipal Transport Authority) – requested by representatives of the Transit Authority to undertake a commission to advise them on their contract with their signalling contractor Alcatel which at the time was experiencing difficulties. Helped the Transit Authority to achieve a contract renegotiation strategy which was successfully implemented.

Copenhagen Metro (Orestadsselskabet I/S) - Following presentation of a paper on lessons learnt at a conference, in 2006, asked to provide consultancy support to the client team tendering out the Copenhagen Metro DBOM Contracts (1996), advising them on the procurement strategy and necessity of back to back integration between the civil work contract and the systems contract that they were letting to different contractors.

DLR Second Generation Signalling Upgrade (DLR Ltd) – responsible for project managing the upgrade of the DLR moving block Alcatel signalling to the second generation equipment to facilitate the operation of 3 car trains and significant performance and reliability improvements.

Fleet and Depot Management (DLR Ltd) - managed a group of two railway depots, the delivery into service and maintenance of a fleet of over 70 Light Rail Vehicles and Engineers Vehicles, including the construction and mobilisation of a new fully equipped maintenance depot and then delivered savings through the rationalising and decommissioning of the original depot by streamlining the maintenance organisation.