And the Team of the Year Award goes to....Nottingham’s Tram

Nottingham’s tram staff proved they are the winning team when they celebrated a three-way triumph at the National Light Rail Awards this week.

NTC’s hard-working Administration Team won the Team of the Year award while NTC was highly commended (runners-up) in the Operator of the Year (having won this title last year) and Safety Initiative of the Year categories.

The black-tie Light Rail Awards, hosted by BBC’s Nicholas Owen at the Café Royal London on October 8th recognise excellence in operators and industry suppliers.

NTC’s administration team is only eight-strong, but between them they are responsible for an unenviable number of duties – among them answering the customer telephone helpline, investigating complaints, administering accounts, staff rosters, revenue, insurance, engineering and human resources. Despite the workload, the team has sustained annual performance monitoring system compliance for answering customer queries within strict time guidelines of between 98.5% and 100%.

This compliance has been recorded and checked monthly since trams began operating in Nottingham in 2004. More than 38 million passengers have been carried since then.

The runner up prize for Safety Initiative of the Year was awarded to NTC’s innovative ‘Nerys and Neville’ internal poster campaign, which communicates safety advice to NTC staff through cartoon strips. All of the ideas for the campaign come from staff suggestions.

Helen Goulding, NTC’s General Manager said “I am delighted about our continued success at these awards, it is rewarding for us to be acknowledged by an external body.”

She continued “the fact that we have been recognised again is testament to the hard work and professionalism of all our staff from Tram Crew to Engineers who all work together to provide the world class tram service that Nottingham is rightly proud of. I would particularly like to congratulate the Administration team on their well deserved Team of the Year Award”.