Case #797

Transportation (livery) for railroad employees

This privately held service operates a "taxi" type service, transporting railroad crews at various points along the rail system when the crew shift is over. When the company was initially purchased, it generated approximately $12 million in revenues with a high volume of $50 transactions. The company had two dispatch centers in different cities, and all accounting and transaction processing was done using manual accounting systems. The new owners grew the company to an annualized revenue of approximately $35 million, still in $50 transactions, but without making any systemic improvements. The result? The company was losing money and the owners were adding funding to maintain the business.

Morris-Anderson was retained to resolve the systemic problems. Our crew revised the accounting systems, brought the billing and accounts receivable systems under control, managed the “catching-up” of a significant number of trips that were never billed, incorporated the financial accounting system into the larger accounting system for the holding company, consolidated the dispatch centers into one dispatch operation, and managed the design, development and implementation of an automated dispatch system.

Thanks to hard work from all sides, the project objectives were realized. The accounting system was implemented and interfaced with the holding company’s financial accounting system. The back trips were billed and the accounts receivables were brought under control. The dispatch centers were consolidated without any interruption of service and transparently to the railroads. The new dispatch system was implemented, resulting in a paperless dispatch operation within a scalable framework.