Heathrow Express

Use case

Business Continuity, Cloud Software, Risk Management

Industry

Transport

Team size

200 employees

Services

Escrow as a Service (EaaS),
Replicate Agreement,
Verification Services

Heathrow Express is a private train operating company, which operates the stations within the airport and provides a direct link between London Heathrow Airport and Paddington.

It is the fastest route between the UK’s hub airport and central London and since its launch in 1998, over 110 million passengers have boarded Heathrow Express.

Heathrow Express recently made the investment in a cloud-based application to support their current ticket operations. With the desire to utilise innovative technology and remain competitive within the rail industry, Heathrow Express had concerns around the adoption of cloud-based software and approached Escode.

As a core component of their operations, Heathrow Express are heavily reliant on the availability of the application on a daily basis to ensure the system works seamlessly and uninterrupted to match the requirements and expectations of customers.

As a result of Escode’s industry-leading Escrow as a Service Solution in partnership with Amazon Web Service (AWS), Heathrow Express now have robust plans in place to mitigate their concerns whilst protecting their investment.

Challenge

As a leading train operating company, Heathrow Express are the first train company in the UK to launch a fully functional train ticket app, investing in a new cloud-based ticketing system to enable their  customers to purchase tickets for travel through their mobile devices.

To develop the purpose-built application for Heathrow Express, the software supplier partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their cloud hosting partner of choice. The application was designed to not only support the ticket sales operation but also to provide a more efficient, user friendly and streamlined approach for their customers when purchasing tickets.

Technology solutions for automation, such as automated ticketing systems, present great opportunities for change in the industry, however, with passenger numbers increasing and the pressure to reduce overheads ever present, it was imperative for Heathrow Express to not only protect their investment, but also to acknowledge that the systems can potentially be vulnerable to threat from cyber-attack. Considering the aforementioned factors, Heathrow Express turned to Escode to put in place the necessary precautions to mitigate the risks associated with using an application hosted in the cloud by a third-party software supplier.

With the application hosted within the AWS cloud environment, Heathrow Express required an escrow provider with  extensive experience of working with AWS in order to provide a tailored and bespoke solution to address their concerns when making the transition to the cloud. As a registered technology partner to AWS, in addition to being their preferred escrow provider for the past 20 years, Heathrow Express approached risk mitigation specialists, Escode.

“The Escrow as a Service solution provided by NCC Group’s Escode, has enabled us to embrace the cloud with complete peace of mind in the knowledge that our services are robust and secure.”

– Les Freer, Director at Heathrow Express

Solution

After understanding both the foundations and criticality behind the application, Escode recommended an Escrow as a Service Replicate Agreement, which ensures that in the event of software supplier failure, Heathrow Express have the legal access to a separately hosted and mirrored instance of their bespoke software and unique data. An integral element of Escode’s Escrow as a Service Replicate solution is the 24-7 monitoring of Heathrow’s cloud environment, via the Group’s Security Operations Centre (SOC).

Heathrow’s cloud-based ticketing application, if disrupted, or exploited could result in significant financial loss and reputational damage. To further mitigate any security vulnerabilities Escode’s SOC delivers state-of-the-art detection, protection and remediation to ensure Heathrow Express’s application is protected at all times from today’s cyber attackers.

Although an EaaS Replicate Agreement covers the legal access to the required material, there are instances where, to ensure maximum risk mitigation, Heathrow Express must test and verify the ability to access and replicate the cloud environment within AWS.

An EaaS Replicate Verification, which is aligned to coexist with the EaaS Replicate Agreement, was therefore advised by Escode to provide Heathrow with a higher level of assurance that the deposited material contains everything needed to generate a copy of the environment in order to run the application the EaaS Replicate Verification, conducted in the presence of an independent Escode Verification Consultant, involved collaboration between the consultant and the software supplier in creating the infrastructure, deploying the application under the agreement, injecting Heathrow’s live data in order to run a number of functionality tests to facilitate the transfer of the associated materials into Escode’s AWS cloud environment.

“Speed and reliability is everything to Heathrow Express customers and that goes for our digital applications too.”

– Les Freer, Director at Heathrow Express

Results

After successfully replicating the  customer’s unique cloud environment, should there be a scenario where an escrow release is triggered; Escode will grant Heathrow Express access to all the resources stored within the AWS hosted environment allowing the customer to continually evolve through the AWS platform. Both Heathrow Express and the software supplier have benefited greatly through Escode’s groundbreaking Escrow as a Service solution. Heathrow Express have the assurance they can continue to deliver a consistent, high-quality service to its customers by implementing a fast reacting business continuity strategy.

Additionally, Escode’s long standing affiliation with AWS has assisted the software supplier in increasing their credibility with one of the market leading service providers whilst providing Heathrow Express with a bespoke method of deposit and release.

Les Freer, Director at Heathrow Express commented “Speed and reliability is everything to Heathrow Express customers and that goes for our digital applications too. By combining our long-term relationship with Escode and the technological expertise of AWS, Escode’s Escrow as a Service Solution has enabled us to embrace the cloud with complete peace of mind in the knowledge that our services are robust and secure”.