Fourway Communication has been undertaking maintenance contracts for over 10 years, and has proven experience with a wide range of railway telecommunication systems both on LUL and Network Rail infrastructure.

A separate operating division manages maintenance contracts and includes the fault desk, administrative team and engineers on the ground. Maintenance personnel have access to the wider company knowledge bases of technology, health & safety, environmental, and operational railway requirements.

The fault desk operators track the details of each incoming notification and subsequent engineers' visits. The database used for this provides fast access to fault log status, and produces all normal monthly reporting information, such as fault attendance performance, asset history, trend analysis, penalty calculation and billing.

The company believes in a transparent approach to the provision of performance data. The process of information exchange is jointly developed with clients and reviewed at agreed intervals. A variety of daily updated standard trackers are posted on the company website and are available for viewing by clients via login.

One of the main goals is effective fault-clearance, avoiding the need for return visits. This is critical to minimising the level of outstanding faults and cost-effectively achieving the best system availability. Key factors for Fourway in this respect are ensuring engineers have the highest possible levels of specific site, system and asset knowledge. Engineers develop this quickly through repeat exposure to the same sites and systems. There is also heavy reliance on information stored on the database and made available through the fault desk. For each asset, this includes as-built data, fault history, tools and plant requirements, and safety considerations. The availability and location of spares is also recorded.

Scheduled preventive maintenance regimes are detailed in agreed programmes. The frequency and nature of visits is dependant on the asset and its particular site environment. Usually this is jointly agreed with the client.