AARK is built upon the idea of gathering route information from individual train drivers to build interactive route knowledge & retention portfolios. Every time a driver drives a route, his or her route portfolio is updated to reflect this. In turn this means that each driver's route retention is kept up to date. Depending on the route risk ranking the system will alert the administrator to any driver requiring a route refresher, in cab ride or route assessment.

Being an evidence based system naturally lends itself to the area of competence management. In addition to managing a driver's route knowledge it also manages a driver's operational competence of traction types from Rail Cars to Locomotives to On Track Machines. Individual company standards can be introduced allowing the software to be customised to best suit a company's requirements for competence management.

Once AARK is set up it is automated. It will automatically update a driver's route competency record each time they traverse a route. However, if an incomplete or unrecognised route is driven the system will alert a driving standards manager or administrator to review.

Each driver has their own route portfolio in the database. Each route driven by a driver is viewable on the database. Start and finish times are available along with a route map of the journey completed. In the event that a driver stops driving their portfolio can be archived on the system. Individual companies can customise the system depending on the routes operated and their traction types.

AARK has been developed and built using the most up to date and advanced computer technology available. It is platform independent meaning it will work on all operating systems used by mobile phones to tablets. This enables a company to integrate the system into exisiting hardware. At the heart of the system is an algorithm used for interpreting the information uploaded by a driver.

AARK has been developed by train drivers for train drivers. The system was built on the working together philosophy - the passionate implementation of a set of management principles that were instrumental in the development of AARK. It was very important for us to understand what both drivers and competence managers needed when it came to route knowledge acquisition and retention management.
We listened.