transN, the public transport operator for the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, plays a central role in the region’s multimodal mobility system.
Identifying goals
With nearly 600 employees across 150 professions, transN operates both rail and road services. Its network carries 28.4 million passengers annually across 293 kilometers, served by 105 buses, 41 trolleybuses, 18 trains and 5 funiculars.
The company maintains a strong focus on service quality, customer satisfaction and innovation to improve access to transport. In all these areas, maintenance is critical. It ensures vehicle availability, operational consistency and passenger safety.
A decade ago, however, reliance on Excel files, limited traceability of interventions, fragmented tools and poor consolidation of performance indicators were major barriers to process improvement. Without a unified system, it was difficult to anticipate needs, monitor operations or plan maintenance over the medium term.
Overcoming challenges
To address these issues, the company began by deploying the Stadler Rail Maintenance Software (SRMS)—developed by Stadler, a long-time user of Attune EAM (formerly HxGN EAM)—in one of transN’s rail maintenance centers in 2017.
After a successful pilot, the decision was made to roll out the approach more broadly. transN selected Attune EAM as its core platform, along with the Attune EAM Mobile Offline application to support maintenance activities in the field.
The decision was based on the solution’s ability to meet key operational priorities: improving fleet availability, streamlining workflows and increasing overall efficiency.
Today, Attune EAM is used widely across transN operations, including workshops for trains, buses and trolleybuses, rail infrastructure and safety facilities, accident management, traffic management centers, railway production and finance. Users include both managers and employees, as well as infrastructure experts working across multiple areas. The system has replaced outdated tools and reduced reliance on spreadsheets.
Realizing results
Since deployment, the solution has enabled full traceability of corrective and preventive maintenance across vehicles and facilities. Teams can create work orders, track labor time and measure performance using defined indicators and time valuation tools. This has led to better planning, fewer errors and more consistent documentation.
Attune EAM also supports regulatory compliance, consolidates performance data in a centralized system, promotes standardization, reduces inventory levels and improves planning capabilities.
Stronger communication and collaboration
Octave’s solution has also driven significant improvements in communication and workflows. Regulatory and ISO 9001:2015 requirements are fully met and reliance on paper forms and spreadsheets has been sharply reduced.
Electronic checklists have simplified task execution and supported more efficient and sustainable daily operations. Preventive maintenance can now be scheduled in advance, and visibility into metrics such as kilometers driven, hours booked, mean time between failures (MTBF), mean time to repair (MTTR) and vehicle availability has added precision to decision-making.
Greater visibility across the organization
Operational users now have access to modern, intuitive tools that support standardized work tracking, mobile functionality and collaboration. Task entries include comments, logged hours, attached documents and images, all accessible from the field, resulting in more efficient maintenance and better coordination across teams.
Administrators benefit from greater autonomy, including bulk data imports using Excel templates, streamlined workflows and regular feature updates from Attune EAM and Attune EAM Digital Work. These updates are supported through ongoing collaboration with Octave and the Smart Community team.
From a management perspective, the solution delivers clear efficiency gains, improved traceability and the ability to monitor key performance indicators.
Next steps
Today, Attune EAM fully supports transN’s goal of delivering reliable, high-quality rail and road public transport to its 27.5 million annual passengers.
transN plans to extend Attune EAM to more assets and teams, covering infrastructure, buildings, funiculars and ticketing machines. It is also exploring other Octave solutions to further improve operational efficiency and support its goals of enabling multimodal mobility, fostering regional growth and enhancing the quality of life for its communities.
“Octave’s solution plays an important role in our organization because it allows us to optimize production costs and gain a comprehensive view of our maintenance data. With better data management, decision-making became more efficient and effective, helping us stay competitive and meet the expectations of our sponsors and customers,” Yves Tabasso, Technical and Infrastructure Director, transN