Starting today, Falck will be testing a new and innovative way of dealing with emergency response at shunting yards. For the next nine months, Falck will carry out a pilot to see if an emergency response train could be an idea for shunting yards in order to maintain safety and not having to modify the site with infrastructure and fixed systems.
The customer is the Dutch public rail managing organisation ProRail, who has hired Falck to provide both personnel and management at their site Waalhaven-Zuid. This is a shunting yard in the port of Rotterdam where dangerous goods are shunted. Falck already provides a fire brigade at ProRail’s biggest shunting yard.
“We are very happy to service ProRail with this extra contract. The current contract is under pressure due to new regulations on the size of the contract and a wish from ProRail to insource the fire brigade. Signing this agreement proves to ProRail that a partnership with Falck has great benefits in being able to size up and down on emergency response fast,” says Commercial Manager Berthil van den Poll.
“You were expensive in relation to the competitors, but quality, trust and the ability to act quickly were more important to us,” said ProRail when announcing that Falck had been awarded the contract.
The pilot runs until 31 December, with an option to subsequently extend the contract with three months at a time.
