Most railways need extensive support from the state or the cities they serve. But some of the best metro railways in the world are self-financing and affordable to both passengers and taxpayers. Such railways demonstrate world-class practices in four main areas: safety, income generation, customer service and cost control, including sustainable asset management. Equipment and service reliability in such metros is many times higher than in most other railways. They also impose exceptionally high standards on their suppliers, but normally have a responsible attitude to them, with long term relationships permitting a reasonable level of profit and ongoing business, while exercising downward pressure on cost.

To learn from such world-class metros, regular conferences and benchmarking programmes such as CoMET and Nova are essential. The series of conferences organized by HNZ Media usually feature speakers from such metros, who are always happy to share their expertise with others. Recent CoMET studies on safety, air quality and on the Sustainable Metro make the title of the 2012 World Metro Rail Summit particularly topical: Green, Safe and Sustainable.

Sincerely

Robin Hirsch