Case Study: Strategic Workforce Planning at Dutch Railway Infrastructure Manager- ProRail Traffic Control Introduction The Dutch Railway system processes 1.3 million passengers and more than a million tons of cargo daily with high reliability and safety and a low CO2 profile. In the coming 10 years, the daily number of trains will need to grow 30% to enable train operators to deliver on the growing demand for Passenger and Cargo traffic. This is a major challenge for the Dutch Railway infrastructure manager, ProRail Traffic Control. An obvious choice would be to change and grow the rail infrastructure within the Netherlands. But growing the infrastructure would require a multi-billion Euro investment and may take too much time and space in urban areas. So to meet this growing demand, ProRail Traffic Control needs to invest in technologies that make it possible to automate and digitize large parts of the now manual traffic control process. This way the transportation capacity can be increased with the current infrastructure. This case study will focus on the strategic workforce challenges for the 700 Train Traffic Controllers and 150 operational planners whose jobs will change tremendously because of this. Where we stand now In the past decades, the level of automation at ProRail Traffic Control has increased. At the moment, the train schedule runs automatically if it fits into the pre-planned train schedule. However, the core of technology like signalling and safety systems has not had a fundamental upgrade in decades. When the trains run as scheduled, the system requires minimal intervention by operators. But in case of a disruption, a lot of manual actions are required of the operators. This means all workstations are manned for handling disruption and result in extremes in highs and lows in stress on the operators. The national Operational Control Centre Rail Planning for the future To achieve the projected capacity growth for the Traffic Control business unit, management and experts from the technical staff developed a 10-year vision on the required changes together with IT and the scheduling department. As the means of digitizing the traffic control process is central to this vision, it was dubbed ‘Digital Vision’. Digital Vision noted the following: 4. Capacity growth without rising costs. The major driver for the Digital Vision was enabling the required capacity growth without rising costs. For the last 5 years ProRail has only been able to breakeven and in order to fund the Digital Vision has acquired a loan of 500 million Euro. Trade Dispute: The union representing the Train Operators and Traffic Controllers demand an increase in vacation days from 11 standard working days (Monday to Friday) to 15 working days and an increase in salary by 8%. The last increase was in 2019 of 5%. Assignment requirements: The Netherlands is ranked the sixth in the world in terms of the quality of railroad infrastructure. However, in order to prepare for the future, the currently existing infrastructure needs a 30% increase in capacity and tremendous changes in the current workforce. ProRail Traffic Control has put together a team to assist in drafting a strategic workforce plan that will help it achieve its objectives. the achievement of ProRail Traffic Control Digital Vision. Member should assume one following roles of the Manager, Legal Services Submission Instructions:  The PowerPoint Presentation should consist of no more than 8-15 slides. Course Name & Code, Group identification (Eg GR01), the names and position of each member included on the first slide.  The introduction must have an overview of the case facts to be addressed. In addition, the information in the body of the presentation must be relevant, logical, and linked to the topics and introduction.  The conclusion should summarise the information and recommendations presented.  At least four references must be used and cited.  The final presentation document should be agreed to by all members prior to submission. If however, a member of the Executive Management” team is uncooperative and/or unwilling to contribute to this assignment this should be mentioned by the “General Manager” or another “Manager” as an accompanying note to the assignment. This note should be no more than 250 words.  Failure to participate or contribute to the group assignment will result in a loss of mark.  Similar to a work environment, team members are strongly encouraged to motivate their peers to participate.  Convert the PowerPoint to Portable Document Format (pdf).  Place in the Assignment Drop Box by the given due date