Heritage Operations Processing System

Not to be confused with Total Operations Processing System.
This article is about the railway service and administration system. For the beer ingredient, see Hops.
Heritage Operations Processing System
Product type Transport Administration & Associated Services
Owner Consortium
Country United Kingdom
Introduced 2009
Related brands Heritage Railway Association
Markets United Kingdom
Website heritage-ops.org.uk

Heritage Operations Processing System, Heritage Ops, or HOPS, is a web-based tool for the day-to-day running and management of preserved and heritage railways. The system was developed, from a concept drawn up by Danny Scroggins and Luke Cartey.[1]

Founding and development

The HOPS Project began early in August 2009 in the rostering office of the signalling department at the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway – who embraced the use of the technology. Beta testing began in January 2010 with a small group of volunteers, the group being enlarged later that year. After this bedding-in period, the system was made more widely available to other UK heritage railways in January 2011.[2]

The purpose of the system is to provide administration tools associated with operating functions on heritage railways, such as staff rostering, timetabling and competence management, document control, etc. The system assists railways in meeting the requirements of government legislation such as the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (ROGS) which were introduced in Great Britain to put the 2004 European Railway Safety Directive into practice.[3] The system assists with competency management (as a requirement of the Safety Management System).[4][5]

The ethos of the development of the system has been that in the majority of cases, producing large-scale data-handling and storage facilities, with the appropriate level of security, access, backups, etc., would not be economical for an individual railway. A single program, in use by many railway companies, however, would make the investment economical.

The system has grown significantly in the five years it has been in development, mainly in response to feedback from users and demands of the industry, and promises to continue to develop on the same lines in the future.

References

  1. ↑ "Heritage Operations Processing – System Updates". Heritage Operations Processing website. Heritage Operations Processing. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  2. ↑ "Heritage Operations Processing – History & Growth History". Heritage Operations Processing website. Heritage Operations Processing. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  3. ↑ "The Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (as amended) – A Guide to ROGS: May 2013" (PDF). Office of Rail Regulation website. Office of Rail Regulation. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  4. ↑ "RSSB – General SMS Guidance". RSSB website. Rail Safety and Standards Board Ltd. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  5. ↑ "RSSB – Competence Management". RSSB website. Rail Safety and Standards Board Ltd. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
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