About the Group
Quick Summary – The Benchmarking Group of North American Light Rail Systems (GOAL) was established on January, 2016 to provide a confidential forum for light rail agencies in the United States and Canada to learn from each other by comparing performance, sharing experiences, and identifying best practices.
What is Benchmarking?
Benchmarking is defined as a systematic process of continuously measuring, comparing and understanding organizations’ performance and changes in performance of a diversity of key business processes against comparable peers to gain information which will help the participating organizations to improve their performance.
The Group’s Objectives
Measure Performance
To develop a concise, well-balanced and comparable Key Performance Indicator system for performance measurement for use by North American light rail agencies that will: determine strengths and weaknesses, prioritize areas for improvement and support dialogue with stakeholders (e.g. senior management, board, government)
Understand and Identify
To provide benefits to all members by understanding the reasons for performance levels and trends and by identifying best practices.
Share Knowledge
To facilitate the sharing of knowledge and best or otherwise interesting practices in a confidential environment.
Continuous Process
To establish an ongoing benchmarking process that considers the financial and labor resources available to participating mid-sized agencies.
The Group’s Guiding Principles
Cooperation, independence, speed, depth and confidentiality are the guiding principles of the group and are central to its success.
Administration of the Group
The group is administered and facilitated by the Transport Strategy Centre (TSC) at Imperial College London, a world leader in public transit benchmarking. The TSC was set up in 1992 to serve the transport industry on strategic, technology, economic and policy issues and as a research and teaching unit within the Centre for Transport Studies.
Other Benchmarking Groups
GOAL Benchmarking is one of a family of benchmarking groups facilitated by the Transport Strategy Centre. These include both North American and international benchmarking groups for the metro, bus, rail, and airport sectors. All combined, they represent more than 100 transit agencies. The current groups are the:
- Community of Metros (COMET)
- International Suburban Rail Benchmarking Group (ISBeRG)
- International Bus Benchmarking Group (IBBG)
- American Bus Benchmarking Group (ABBG)
- International Mainline Rail Benchmarking Group (IMRBG)
- Railway Infrastructure Asset Management Benchmarking Group (RIAMBiG)
- Airport Benchmarking Group (ABG)
- International Light Rail and Tram Benchmarking Group (BOLTS)
