Capgemini has won IT outsourcing contract extension from the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), for further ten years.
The £18.5m contract covers support for the UK’s National Rail Reservation System for the period 2009-2019 and was signed between Capgemini and Rail Settlement Plan (RSP), which is part of ATOC.
Under the contract Capgemini will provide the IT infrastructure, application management and infrastructure management support of the reservation service. A key feature of the new contract is a total refresh of the HP and IBM hardware upon which the reservation system runs. The upgrade will increase the capability of the system from 780 to 2,000 transactions per second, which enhances the speed of making their rail reservations online or by phone.
Steve Pickman, projects director at RSP, said: “Capgemini has provided us with a reliable and cost-effective service over the years which has played a vital part in assisting the development of modern rail retailing methods. I am therefore very pleased that we will be continuing to work with them for a further ten years.”
Mr Pickman expects Capgemini to help ATOC save significant sums of money in the planned hardware upgrade because of its buying power as an IT operator in negotiations with vendors such as HP and IBM.
The reservations system was designed and built by Capgemini under a contract signed between ATOC and Capgemini in November 2002.
