Capgemini UK Plc has been has its long term contract for outsourcing IT provisions for The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) for a further 10 years. The extension which will last till 2019 has been signed by the Rail Settlement Plan Ltd in conjunction with the provider and is worth an estimated £18.5 million.

The scope of the agreement covers support for Infrastructure and Application Management in addition to IT infrastructure, primarily for technology that supports the rail networks reservation systems.

The move has been welcomed by the Managing Director for the Rail Settlement Plan Steve Howes, who claimed that the reservations service is integral in the support they offer to National Rail. The increased technology, thanks to a major upgrade of IBM and HP hardware, will see the operating capacity for the reservations service increase from 780 to some 2,000 transactions per second. Currently the system processes a annual total of around 3.7 billion transactions.

The trend towards train travel, which has been resurgent under the effects of the economic downturn, has meant that improvements are required in order to keep pace with increasing demand. The upgrades mean both telephone and online reservations will become both quicker and easier.

The incumbent, multi-award winning system was designed and constructed in 2002 by Capgemini under a contract with ATOC. Its success and respect within the industry was critical to the contract extension with RSP saying its role in developing modern rail reservation delivery was outstanding and therefore deserved to be acknowledged through continued partnership.