Tracsis is to help the NHS set up vaccine centres

The Leeds-based firm will use its expertise in handling events traffic to ensure that people can be safely vaccinated without social distancing risks or traffic hold ups.

Tracsis has been asked to pitch for various local authority contracts and the first centres could be set up as early as next month, ready for the roll out of a vaccine.

Chris Barnes, Tracsis’ chief executive, said: “It’s a strange world at the moment. We’re actually winning work in places we didn’t know we could win work.

“The Government is now looking at how to get 60 million people vaccinated in the next few months. That’s quite a significant logistics exercise. We are being asked to pitch for activities that we didn’t even need as a society six months ago as they didn’t exist.”

Tracsis will be working with local authorities to run the new vaccination centres.

“I imagine most people will arrive in their car, therefore, the type of event traffic management services we provide is ideally placed to support these activities” said Mr Barnes.

“The UK needs to get 60 million plus people vaccinated over as quick a period as possible. Each vaccination centre will be like managing a massive festival or a major sporting event.

“We’ve been approached in the last few weeks, out of the blue really, but it’s a perfect fit for our skill set.”

Tracsis is keen to get the contracts up and running so it can get furloughed staff back to work.

“For everybody’s mental health, we want people back at work. It is looking increasingly positive,” said Mr Barnes.

“With a vaccine centre, it’s all about how you get a very large volume of people in and out of a facility safely so you don’t cause a massive disruption in whatever part of the city or the countryside where that vaccine centre is.”

Tracsis is currently bidding for the work and the first contract is due to start in December.

“The Government doesn’t absolutely know that the vaccine will be approved, but it is putting the infrastructure in place to make sure it can move immediately,” said Mr Barnes.

“The events business has gone through a real rollercoaster. March was just terrible, but since then things are quite positive with lots of new opportunities.”

Tracsis is also working with the events industry to come up with innovative ways to hold large scale events next summer.

“Most people want to run big events next summer, but it’s all dependent on whether the mass vaccination programme has taken full effect, or,we have quick tests ready,” said Mr Barnes.

“Boris Johnson’s moonshot programme means that for events like Glastonbury, you’d get tested at home on the Tuesday before the weekend. A text message would confirm you’re negative. When you arrive on site, you have a second test and if that confirms you’re negative, then you’re allowed in and you’d be in a secure environment.”

He was speaking as the firm reported strong trading at its rail technology and services division, which outperformed budget expectations.

The group, which produces software that can prevent train delays and derailments, said its traffic and data services division took a £10m hit from the coronavirus pandemic, but action was taken to reduce the cost base and mitigate the impact. Some of these losses were offset by the outperformance in its rail technology and services division.

The £10m hit was mostly due to Tracsis’ exposure to cancelled events such as Glastonbury, The Grand National and the British Grand Prix.

Revenues fell slightly from £49m to £48m in the year to July 31 and pre-tax profits fell from £6.6m to £4.1m.

Mr Barnes said: "After a strong first half, I am pleased that the business was able to robustly navigate itself through the second half challenges linked to Covid-19.

"The team did a great job in proactively responding to these challenges whilst protecting the health and wellbeing of all our employees."

Tracsis is confident that the medium to long term growth prospects for all parts of the group are unchanged and the group is committed to its overall strategic growth and investment plans.

It said that trading in August, September and October was in line with expectations and two major rail contracts are in the latter stages of negotiation.