Maintaining public transport safety across Switzerland

The challenge

Swiss Federal Railways (Schweizerischen Bundesbahnen, or SBB) has averaged more than 1.3 million passengers daily for the past several years. Integral to maintaining smooth and safe operations are the SBB Transport Police control centre and almost 250 SBB Transport Police officers.

The control centre handles all calls for service from SBB-owned infrastructure- more than 150,000 each year. And since SBB’s network of railways covers the whole country, and most incidents occur on moving trains, SBB Transport Police often collaborate with regional police who have jurisdiction in the location where a train stops following an incident.

The solution

SBB Transport Police and its control centre have relied on Hexagon’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) solution since 2005. While CAD applications for police, fire and EMS agencies typically cover narrowly defined geographic areas of responsibility, SBB’s solution relies on the flexibility and configurability of Hexagon’s CAD to serve the entire rail network across the country.

The centre’s CAD solution is integrated with communication, records management and alarm systems, with interactive dashboards for statistics and analysis ̶ saving time in this fast-moving, complex environment. Location data enters the system in real time, while the mapping component allows for visualisation of assets and other critical data, meaning dispatchers and police can respond faster.