Improving operations at DLR with real-time reports

Key results

1.5M events + 1M incidents recorded
500,000 sheets of paper eliminated
Faster oversight / fewer verification calls

Overview

Improving operations at DLR with real-time reports

A joint venture between Keolis and Amey to operate and maintain the Docklands Light Railway (DLR). In overview:

Industry: Public transport
Company Size: 500–1,000 employees
Location: London, United Kingdom
Network Size: 45 stations, 40 km of track, 149 driverless trains
Annual Passengers: Over 100 million

KeolisAmey Docklands (KAD) operates and maintains the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), a fully automated metro system in London. A joint venture between Keolis and Amey, KAD ensures daily service performance, station maintenance, rolling stock management, and customer support across the network.

To meet growing demand and demonstrate operational excellence, KAD partnered with SIRV to modernise how it reports, monitors, and audits essential services such as security checks. The goal: a single, scalable platform to support internal reporting across teams.

Challenge: Fragmented and manual reporting

Managing a high-frequency rail network requires not only smooth operations but also a clear, defensible record of those operations. With 45 stations, many of which are unstaffed or remotely supervised, proving that tasks were completed consistently and correctly was a major challenge.

Before implementing SIRV, KAD used outdated handheld touch readers to log staff activity. These devices were limited to basic proof-of-presence functionality and lacked the speed, flexibility, and transparency needed for real-time oversight. As a result, operational teams spent considerable time manually checking that work had been completed, without a centralised reporting structure to verify or analyse the data.

KAD needed a faster, more flexible and transparent approach to internal reporting, one that would reduce overhead, increase accountability, and support both daily decision-making and long-term compliance.

Solution: Real-time reports with SIRV

KAD introduced SIRV’s reporting platform across security, operations, and facilities teams. Staff now use mobile devices equipped with GPS and NFC to log activities such as, inspections, cleaning, incident response, and asset checks in real time.

Key features include:

Real-time proof of presence
Using smartphones, staff scan checkpoints at key locations across the network. Each interaction is timestamped, geo-tagged, and automatically synced to the central system, even in underground environments with intermittent signal.

Custom operational dashboards
SIRV created a bespoke dashboard for KAD to track location visits. Supervisors can instantly see:

When a location was due to be visited
Whether the visit occurred
Who completed it
Frequency of checks across the day

This gave managers reliable, up-to-the-minute data to produce internal reports and monitor adherence to operational standards.

Audit trails and historical reporting
SIRV allows KAD to retrieve historical activity records (from a few days to several years ago) within seconds. This data is used for internal investigations, compliance checks, and to defend against legal claims, such as slips, trips or falls.

Cross-Functionality
SIRV was extended beyond security to support cleaning, engineering, and customer service. Teams use the platform for: