Tracsis delivers rise in revenue

Tracsis, which spun-out of the University of Leeds, designs and licences software which covers crew scheduling, crew rostering and performance modelling. It helps transport operators to increase efficiency and cut costs.

The group achieved revenue of 2.65m for the year ended July 31, an increase of 14.5 per cent on the previous year. The company also delivered adjusted earnings before interest taxation, depreciation and amortisation of 701,000, which is slightly down on the 711,000 recorded the year before.

Over the year, the company completed the acquisition of Safety Information Systems. Tracsis said the company's products had extensive growth potential, which was demonstrated by the fact that it had secured a large contract with the Stockholm Metro.

John McArthur, the company's chief executive, said: "Tracsis has performed well in the past year and achieved further growth during a period of unprecedented economic and industry turmoil. We have continued to invest in building our delivery and research and development capabilities, expanded our sales team, and grown our organic revenue streams.

"At the same time we have made a further acquisition - our third to date - which adds further breadth and depth to our market offering. Our efforts have resulted in record sales and a strengthened industry position which puts us in a great position for the future."

In a statement, Tracsis said trading for its core software products was stronger than anticipated. The company said this partly reflected the growing reputation of Tracsis within transport circles, and also demonstrated the "continued and significant pressure" on transport operators to increase operational efficiency and remove costs.

While software revenue was buoyant, the company said its consultancy activity during the period was "somewhat depressed".

Tracsis said this was entirely in line with expectation, given the economic environment and the uncertainty over public spending, particularly in connection with Network Rail, which was brought about by the change of government.

The company added: "An unforeseen knock-on effect of this uncertainly was a delay to the re-tendering process for UK rail franchises. As mentioned in our interim statement, this delay has resulted in no revenue being generated from franchise bidding during the period but it is testament to the group that the overall impact on revenues was small given that we have outperformed elsewhere. The group anticipates franchise bidding activity will resume during 2011 once the government has carried out several pieces of strategic review work within the rail sector."