Over the past twenty years a digital revolution has transformed the way we work, shop and communicate. But if the changes so far seem radical, what comes next is likely to eclipse them, because technology is no longer merely affecting how we interact; it is changing how we make decisions.

While the power of data and tools wielded by social and retail giants such as Google and Amazon is largely well understood, in reality, Decision Science is already a vital tool across a wide range of sectors, where widespread use of data is making established processes exponentially more efficient.

Ali Khatam, co-founder of Decision Science specialists QAMPO, describes the discipline as having two parts – mindset and technology: “It is crucial to develop solutions which people act upon so we can track when and how decisions are made, and how to apply intelligence. However, this only works if people act on your data – if they don’t act, you can’t calibrate. So, it’s about availability, use and measurement.”

Ali explains that when it comes to technology, prediction and prescription are vital. “You have to know the probability of an action – you then have a window in which to act. If you don’t use this window, the data is just a report”. In other words, it is the action informed by data that holds the true value: “When you combine decision support on top of data, it is possible to see which of the available options is best. This is the true power of Decision Science.”

The Role of Decision Science in Rail Planning

The power of Decision Science is in its ability to make sense of complexity. This is a discipline well suited to rail planning, where the vast number of outcomes can often be overwhelming.

As outlined in an article by the Global Railway Review, “big data analytics have the potential to influence several dimensions of the railway sector and can overcome organisational, operational and technical complexities, including economic and human effects and information handling.”

With modern rail planning, complexity levels are already way beyond what humans can realistically expect to manage. However, the ability to identify the best approach is something that an algorithm cannot do on its own. The answer, therefore, is to align technology and expertise in order to improve decision making.

Essentially, the task is to augment human expertise with the power of algorithms, empowering experts to test countless scenarios to find optimal solutions. This is the goal of Decision Science, and there is an increasing belief that it is set to transform the way we live and work.

Decision Science informs rail planning in three distinct ways: visibility, ‘what if’ planning, and “what next” planning. Let’s take a look at each.

Visibility: The Foundation for Decision Science

Visibility plays a critical part in decision making: it is the layer of information on which future decisions are based. In short, if you don’t have visibility of key data you cannot hope to make effective decisions.

The baseline for effective decision making is an accurate understanding of all crew, vehicle and mileage costs. Together this data can help operators to understand their present productivity level – a measure of crew and vehicles costs in comparison with non-productive time.

Having this data validated and readily available provides assurance – and constitutes the first step in the decision-making process.

Increasing Efficiency With ‘What If’ Planning

Decision Science has the potential for a truly game-changing impact on the efficiency of rail planning. This notoriously complex process can be simplified to such an extent that Ali Khatam likens it to a videogame ‘God Mode’: “Think of rail planning as a game of Tetris,” he says. “With Decision Science it’s like playing while being able to predict the next thousand pieces. It’s a lot easier to minimise the gaps when you can see the entire picture.”

The move towards Decision Science in rail is being driven by two requirements: winning tenders and operating efficiently.

As Ben Dvoracek, General Manager Rail, Australia and New Zealand at Trapeze Group explains, “Rail planning is about big decisions. Anyone can bid low to win a tender; the challenge is winning with the right bid. You need data to inform these kinds of decisions.” With Decision Science, operators can analyse all available data in order to accurately predict operations, and use this information to understand the profitability of a particular route.

The process here revolves around understanding the operator’s problem, and then transforming it into an algorithm, thereby making it possible to remove the complexity. To achieve this, relevant ‘levers’ (factors that can be adjusted) are identified, and handed to the operator’s planning team to implement. Typical considerations (‘what if’ scenarios) might include: What if I hire more drivers? What if I buy more vehicles? What if I move my depot to a different location?

The results of these hypothetical scenarios are then presented in relation to the identified purpose – usually revenue and cost – thereby empowering customers to make complex problems simple and transparent. Thus armed, the business can then bid for the tender at a level that they know they can deliver upon, ensuring the best combination of competitiveness, reduced risk, and profitability.

A Better Tomorrow: ‘What Next’ Planning

As incredible as the potential for ‘What If’ planning is, perhaps the most impressive element is that we are just at the beginning of this journey. As Ali Khatam explains, this is an immature technology: “Machine learning and optimisation are becoming mature, but Decision Science – the alignment of the two – is still in its infancy.”

Looking ahead, Decision Science is set to play a huge role in rail, moving from mere ‘what if’ planning to ‘what next’. Essentially, technology will no longer just optimise what we do; it will tell us what to do.

Decision Science will completely transform operators’ ability to make an informed decision. A range of forward-looking factors, including changes either strategic (government or economic policy), tactical (new lines and stations) or operational (response to disruption) will dynamically inform all aspects of decision making, ultimately ensuring optimal operational efficiency and a level of customer experience that drives ridership.

The role of organisations like Trapeze Group is to embrace the opportunity to work with specialist partners such as Qampo, who can help our customers to achieve transformative results with this new technology.

Together we are now beginning to collate and integrate all relevant data, making it available, visualised, and simple to act upon. In the longer term, this process will enable operators to understand and respond to future trends, validating investment plans in-line with accurately anticipated demand – thereby maximising revenue to facilitate profitability and future growth.

Conclusion

It is difficult to understate the level of change promised by Decision Science. Ali Khatam describes it as “AI on steroids”, pointing to the DeepMind’s AI, which “doesn’t play chess like a machine – it plays it like a human grandmaster, but better.”

We are headed for a brave new world – one in which Decision Science is set to transform every aspect of rail operation. For all of us in the industry, the challenge now is to utilise this technology as early as possible, finding ways to improve operations and profitability, and delivering services that meet customer need as safely, reliably and sustainably as possible.

We will all – operators, infrastructure organisations and suppliers – need to work together to deliver on the promise of this new technology for the benefit of all. So if you are ready to take the next step then please get in touch and let’s take it together.

Contact us to find out more about how Trapeze technology and Decision Science can help improve public transport operations.

“In rail, something always goes wrong. We often say that Murphy works in rail. But not only Murphy; his whole family too!”

This comment from Vy’s (formerly Norwegian State Railways, NSB) Peter Hausken perfectly captures his keen sense of humour.

Peter Hausken (Vy’s Special Advisor and formerly IT Manager of Operations)

But dig a little deeper and you realise it also underlines what has made him such a powerful advocate for change. Because Peter doesn’t only understand the challenge; he has a solution too. “You need strong foundations to ensure you have the resilience to adapt,” he explains. And, intriguingly, Peter reveals that this resilience is increasingly obtained through data.

Vygruppen – branded Vy – is a government-owned railway company operating most passenger train services in Norway. As a trained computer scientist, Peter Hausken is uniquely positioned to ensure technology is used to its maximum potential in Vy operations in Norway and Sweden.

The Importance of Data

Data is central to this process, helping to manage disruptions, ensuring the accuracy of information to passengers – and increasingly driving improved decision making.

All of Vy’s present technology solutions are integrated via interfaces that, as Peter describes them, “let the systems listen in”. “Our goal is to only ever enter data once.”

Vy’s integrated technology approach reduces workload and ensures flexibility: “We use elements that can be changed as things progress. Everything is dependent on the same data, but not the same systems. This enables us to adapt quickly – which is how we were able to easily extend operations into Sweden.”

Maximising Resource

Another resulting benefit is greater visibility and consistency of information: “In the office, we see the same data as everyone else. Rolling stock data is reused through other systems,” Peter continues. “The data underpins graphical maps, passenger information, services: all elements joined together via a common interface.

“This visibility enables us to harness the power in the data. The team managing rolling stock and personnel have a visual view in the Gantt diagram: using live data they can see where plans will fail, then switch to the Train Graph view to see the situation on a specific line.“

Peter concludes with a powerful example: “These tools enable us to handle complicated situations as efficiently as possible. Oslo tunnel is one of busiest in the world. We are able to run 24 trains an hour in each direction – that’s about as many as it is possible to do.”

Data-Led Transformation

But one of the most interesting things about data is that it sometimes tells you things you hadn’t expected, and this is where truly transformative value can be found. A perfect example can be seen in Vy’s integration of Automatic Passenger Counting (APC) data; the analysis of which made it possible to increase overall efficiency by reducing station dwell times.

Further investigation revealed that the timetable was too tight in some locations and slack elsewhere. In this way, data has become an essential tool for adjusting timetables in line with reality, increasing the potential for efficiency, and ensuring the information to the public is accurate.

The impact can be seen in the transformation, both of the rail network but also the community: “Every time we made improvements, we were able to accommodate more traffic; we built capacity for more trains,” says Peter. “Over the past ten years, we have rolled out 130 new trainsets, increasing ridership by more than 30 per cent. We wouldn’t have been able to do so without access to planning tools and data.”

Murphy Appears: Managing Disruption

But as Peter memorably outlined in the quote that opened this article, rail disruption is never far away. The key to managing it, he explains, is to prepare: “We use technology to develop plans for how to manage disruption. We prepare that if one line is completely closed then we take a particular course of action; for a different line, we have prepared another reaction.

“All actions are aligned with the infrastructure, so once implemented everything happens really fast. We don’t have to make decisions about what to do, or what to tell passengers: we implement the change and communicate out the new plan: how to run, the new schedule, new rosters and so on.”

This process, Peter explains, ensures consistency, and enables planners to maintain control over the situation: “It is possible to manage operations even during disruption: you need skilled operators using good tools,” concludes Peter.

Assessing the Impact of Data

Clearly, improving operations has a profound impact on passengers: “We are working hard to improve the accuracy & timeliness of information out to passengers,” says Peter. “When something changes we inform passengers everywhere via every available channel. Within two minutes we aim to get the information out; within 20 minutes we say when replacement buses are coming, and within 30 minutes the first buses should arrive.”

But the impact of these improvements can also be seen in Oslo’s improving air quality – a significant development for a city geographically susceptible to high pollution, largely attributed to vehicle emissions. While many factors have contributed – including political will, education and more – clearly if people are to leave their cars at home then there must be a strong alternative.

Oslo is benefiting from the existence of an efficient, reliable public transport network. In the modern world, it is increasingly clear that such networks are built on access to reliable, actionable data. And, as our discussion with Peter Hausken has shown, having access to a computer scientist can be helpful, too.

For the rail sector, disruption is nothing new. From the cascading of rolling stock to electrification, franchise changes, timetable failures, ERTMS implementation and more, disruption has become the way of life for train operating companies. Now we face the aftermath of COVID-19 as a further dimension to an already complex set of circumstances.

Recovery from a situation like this is unlikely to be a smooth transition. More likely we will see a gradual process with frequent and urgent responses to a range of developing factors. In other words: a timetable planner’s nightmare.

COVID-19 recovery will strain our short-term planning capabilities, underlining the urgent requirement for tools that empower planners to respond much more quickly – and much more effectively.

What can better short-term planning tools do to address these circumstances?

Make short term alterations from plan

Planners should be able to make short-term plans as variations from the existing plan. Requiring planners to manually recreate new data from scratch is a needless waste of precious time.

Scenario planning decision support

Empower planners with powerful algorithms that can process vast numbers of ‘what if’ scenarios, enabling them to deliver fully optimised timetables in minutes, observing all available rules and conflicts.

User-friendly graphs

Provide planners with detailed graphs that reduce complexity, instantly showing all options and platform and line information. Planners can create or combine graphs, and zoom in to identify problems and hotspots, providing clarity and reducing keystrokes.

Robustness

Provide planners with the assurance that their tools will always be there for them: reliability, regular upgrades, and the ability to save work provide vital reassurance.

Technology

Planners need tools to help them work more productively. That means fast data processing for decision support, and the ability to work on a laptop wherever and whenever required.

A test system

Armed with a fully functioning test system, planners could import their own rules and data to assess the effectiveness for themselves. Crucially, full traceability would enable them to prove the effectiveness to managers and decision-makers, paving the way for full utilisation of planner-empowering technology.

Trapeze’s planning tools help planners to work faster and more efficiently. Users report that plans can be produced up to 60% faster than with other tools.

contact us for more information.

At first glance, connection protection may seem like a way to keep in touch with distant relatives, or possibly a dating app function to meet the love of your life, but it isn't.

In the world of transport, it is a way to help ensure that passengers make their connecting services when interchanging on a public transport journey. (Connection protection is also known as transfer protection).

Imagine you are heading home, tired, weary. It is a cold and blustery evening and looking out of the tram you can see the rain running down the window.

Two more stops then a one-minute wait, and a ten-minute bus ride will end with a warm family dinner. But the traffic is heavy, and as you are still approaching the stop you can see your bus depart. Thirty minutes of standing in the rain and a cold dinner could have been avoided. If only the bus driver had known to wait!

The driver cannot make this call on their own. They need to focus on driving, and the complexities of the scheduling system mean it is not reasonable to expect drivers to know all the connecting services. Drivers normally cannot see the connecting services, so they need to be told how long to wait for the connection.

The control room operators may have full network visibility, but they are focused on network delivery and often have bigger issues than a single tram being delayed by five minutes.

What is needed is an automatic system that does not rely on human observation, that tells the drivers of those services, via a display on the dashboard, to wait for the inbound connection. Fortunately, these systems exist right now.

They are known as Automatic Vehicle Location and Control (AVLC) systems and are helping passengers reach their destinations efficiently and quickly in London, Singapore, Zurich and other leading world cities.

Then it predicts each vehicle’s arrival at every stop. Connecting services are examined and the drivers of these services are advised on a dashboard display when to depart the interchange. Departing services can be delayed to help commuters make their connections.

When setting up this connection protection there are some practical decisions that need to be made. First, we should ask ourselves, which services should wait for incoming passengers?

It seems obvious that a distributor bus service in the suburbs should wait for a full tram arriving from town in the evening. But what about inbound in the morning? Should the full tram heading to town wait for the bus if the bus is running late?

Trains only have a small scheduling window, and do not normally wait for late bus services. Deciding on which vehicle should wait is network and time of day dependent. Anticipated loads can also factor into deciding who should wait.

Once we know who is waiting for whom, how long should they wait? Every minute a departing service is delayed compromises the on-time running for passengers already onboard. Typically, operators are prepared to hold a bus for up to 2 minutes, but this will depend on the frequency of the service.

Less frequent services magnify the impact of missing the connection and a longer window may be allowed. Automatic thresholds can be supplemented with a manual override on selected routes – triggered only when the auto thresholds are breached.

Ideally, all transport modes are integrated and operate on the same system.

To work effectively, the system that is holding up the departing service needs to get real time information from the inbound service. The SIRI CP service is one way to do this. If they are on different tracking systems, then real time data must be shared in both directions.

What is also important for transport operators is to report on the missed connections. The connection protection can yield direct passenger benefits through time savings, but the reporting helps identify hot spots.

If certain services always just miss the connection, there might be a timetabling problem. Reporting allows planners to identify this situation and to make a small adjustment to one of the services so that in the future it is easier to make the connection.

Advanced AVLC systems inform passengers how their current and related services are running in real time, showing an updated connection status to passengers inside the vehicle.

This can be very valuable - we have even heard of passengers in Zurich looking at the display to work out if they can save a few minutes off their journey home by changing at an interchange to a different tram line.

They give operators the ability to dynamically control their fleet in real time and, with connection protection, they deliver a higher level of public transport service.  

This modern transport technology is available now and ensures customers spend less time waiting for connections and more time on the things that are important to them. They can get home to a warm family dinner safely, conveniently and on-time because connection protection is working for them.

To find out more about how Trapeze technology can improve your bus operations, contact us for more information.

When your transport network runs efficiently, with frequent services and on-time performance, life is great, and you rarely hear from passengers. But when things go wrong, your passengers will let you know! A single missed connection may negatively impact many passengers, and not providing accurate service information, reflecting the actual situation, can compound this, turning grumbling passengers into vocal critics.

Customer satisfaction is just as closely linked to the information provided as it is to the frequency, timeliness and quality of the actual services provided . To deliver this value is a two stage process. First, we need to get the right information and give this to the right people. Second, the information needs to be provided in a way that those people can act on it. 

An Intelligent Transport System (ITS) does exactly this, equipping drivers with comprehensive real-time information and automating many of the tasks required, enabling Automated Vehicle Management (AVM) capabilities. The system can calculate the consequences of possible holding actions, and determines if the waiting receiver vehicle should hold longer for the feeding service, or depart to maintain the timetable or headway.

The system then feeds the status of the connection across the system, to passengers as well as external information displays. Along with visibility of services, AVM gives drivers the power to dynamically change service operations as they drive, to better match the timetable, headway or, through central calculated instructions, connection timing. The result is better quality services, better information, and increased passenger satisfaction. The driver can look at the connection status information on the interactive driver display as well as showing the same information to passengers when the vehicle is equipped with information displays.

AVM supports connection protection not only between vehicles across multiple operators, but across modes of transport, for example displaying information in trams approaching the railway station about the status of the train connection. Though it is unlikely that a rail operator would be able to wait for the passengers to transfer, if the tram is delayed, they would at least be informed as soon as possible on the likelihood of making the connection.

Integration starts with both light rail and tram on-board computers working with a common data supply that defines where and when the tram needs to travel and the actions that need to be performed at different positions along the route. This defines the plan.

Then, location information is sent to the control centre in real time so that network controllers can see the performance of multiple services and their relationship with one another. From here, the ITS and AVM combined deliver advanced capabilities such as headway, route diversion guidance, optimised passenger information and overall enhanced passenger comfort. With complex networks the consequences of disruption can be significant and the need to have a coordinated and central control is exemplified. Using Incident Response tools enables predefined operating procedures to be activated, providing a consistent and structured response. Combining predefined plans with ad hoc responses maximises the efficiency of the response and the return to normal operations.  

Managed Headway; Mind the Gap

Since the control centre knows when each tram on a line arrives at each stop, the headway to the vehicle in front can be calculated and displayed to the driver. This allows the driver to maintain the target interval, for example, by holding the vehicle at the stop for extra seconds to maintain the required gap to follow the timetable.

For transport, history is often times a fair predictor of the future. We can use history-based predictions, to calculate not just timetable and headway adherence for the current location, but also make a data-driven prediction on the likely arrival time over the next 45 minutes or so.

Tracking all trams across the network and collecting this location data in the control centre enables these sophisticated prediction algorithms to provide valuable updates to you and your customers. Even disruptions can be factored in; if all trams passing along a certain section of track are experiencing delays that increase travel time, then it is reasonable to predict that the next trams will experience additional delays.

For high-frequency services, this history-based prediction is significantly more accurate than schedule deviation alone and enables the operator to reduce bunching of services, giving passengers a more regular service and avoiding the pain of no trams for a long time and then two or three arriving nose to tail.

Automate Route Diversion Guidance

The location-aware, on-board computer can provide the driver with a map display showing where to drive. Whilst not essential during regular service, when operating a diversion the additional guidance helps the driver follow the defined diversion route without needing to contact the control centre for instructions. Freed up from guidance calls, the service controllers can concentrate on managing the disruption directly, reducing its impact and severity.

Efficient in-route plans, diversions and alternative patterns can be identified and prepared for likely diversions. The AVM system enables these to be activated centrally as required. It also offers the ability to create ad hoc diversion, taking into account the actual network and routing restrictions, to enable disruption without a pre-existing plan to be managed. In either case the AVM solution takes the updated planned information and ensures it is cascaded across the various passenger information channels, keeping passengers informed.

With the location awareness and control possibilities, as well as the ability to feed information to the driver, the on-board computer can be linked to the train protection systems, via suitable firewalls and specialist interfaces, to provide enhanced information flow between the two systems to support improved operations and enhanced passenger information. For example, identifying the actual platform in a multi-bay interchange without fixed allocation, or detecting when trams are on the opposite tracks. These project-specific enhancements optimise the value of existing investments.

Optimise In-Vehicle Passenger Information

Automating tasks within the tram allows the drivers to focus on safety of customers and delivery of service. An on-board Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) updates the ‘next stop’ information as the tram moves along the route, and the synchronised ‘next stop’ announcement is made together with any additional information. Where trams are equipped with digital information displays, these are automatically updated with the destination and next stops, showing special ‘alight here’ information as well as the status of other services at a stop. 

For example, as a tram pulls into a busy interchange, a screen shows departures on other lines providing passengers with important updates on their next transfer point. Where the system implements connection protection between lines, the status of the subsequent connection can also be shown. AVM-based connection protection is just one tool that equips drivers with the information they need to hold the vehicle at the stop to ensure passengers can connect to services on other lines. Short delays for connection protection don’t negatively impact the overall network running time, but they do positively impact passenger experience and greatly help in the delivery of an effective multi-modal network. Using headway operation, the following trams, on arrival, would be informed on the proximity to the vehicle in front, enabling headway regulation to be undertaken and the interval to be maintained.

The information screen also provides layout information, particularly at very large locations with more than one stop on the route. For example, at a large football stadium, different stadium access points might be serviced by different stops. Providing this information within the tram (for example, “alight here for Gate 2”) directs passengers to the most convenient access point.

"The on-board tram system provides in-cab driver alert of the network Permanent Speed Restriction (PSRs) signs changes along with over-speed and violations alerts. This will increase driver hazard awareness and enhance day to day operational safety.” 
Terry Hewlett, Systems & Business Manager, Transport for London

Enhance Passenger Comfort without Driver Interaction

Other automated features provide further driver support. For example, on entering a tunnel, the passenger lights are automatically turned on, or their brightness adjusted, and the volume of announcements is increased to offset any increase in ambient noise. On exiting the tunnel, the lighting and announcement volume reverts to standard settings. Where the tram is fitted with external speakers, announcements at different times of day are broadcast at different volume levels, limiting the disturbance to residents at night. In fact the on-board computer can be configured, in the data supply, to activate and deactivate digital outputs which can be used to control a range of functions within the vehicle depending on the route and location.

Knowing with confidence where the tram is, without needing to talk to the driver, significantly enhances the safety, security and outcomes for drivers, passengers and the public.

The ITS can also provide integration of the CCTV system monitoring its status and automatically flagging issues to the control centre. In the other direction, it can provide information relating to the position of the tram along the route, as well as GPS coordinates, to the CCTV system. This can then be used to assist in later video retrieval searches and enhance the safety of passengers and drivers.

Improve Driver & Customer Experiences

The provision of on-board driver information and automation of non-core tasks lets drivers focus on customer safety and the core functional vehicle tasks, minimises distractions and ensures the control centre maintains a current, accurate operational view.

This helps reduce the likelihood of things going wrong and improves the opportunity for operators to correct a situation before it has an impact on passengers. With improved efficiency, performance and safety, the ultimate test lies with the passenger who alights at the end of a trip informed and with a sense of satisfaction and ease.

If outdated, disconnected technology is resulting in basic or non-existent driver control or passenger information, your service delivery is being held back.

Current research projects underway together with university partners, take this one step further, looking at ways of improving the energy efficiency of the tram operation by combining real time information, planning and operational controls.

To find out how AVM technology can help you deliver your customers the service they want, talk to us today.

[1] Zhang, Feng. Traveler Responses to Real-Time Transit Passenger Information systems, 2010

When it comes to keeping your ambulance fleet and assets in a state of operational readiness, it’s imperative that you have the information needed to make critical decisions – a key requirement for every emergency response organisation. 

What’s at risk? Unpredicted asset failures, maintenance budget blowouts, decisions made on incorrect data, decreased asset lifecycle, increased asset downtime and more. None of which you want to see in performance reports. You need to gain insights and confidence in the health and the ability of your assets to perform.

Taking control of your assets and inventory is a critical part of having confidence in your ability to respond. You should consider:

• Security is prevalent within fleet strategies and as fleets become autonomous and digitally powered, maintenance teams will become the critical frontline of defence to ensure transportation is safe. Not only do technicians need to inspect and ensure that back-up systems and safeguards are in place, but they are now being asked to monitor more advanced technologies on a daily basis. This technology not only sits within the confines of the vehicle manufacture, but also the complex mission-critical assets within an Ambulance. Traditional fleet management has not allowed for technology advancements and will impede fleets transitioning to new technologies or vehicle types.

• Understanding how your assets perform – from understanding the effects of driver behaviour on fuel consumption and vehicle wear and tear, to modelling vehicle utilisation characteristics and ensuring you are not impacted by lease penalties due to a favourite vehicle being used, versus maximising value out of an existing asset which is due for decommission with room to spare on the lease allowances.

• Controlling your assets and knowing when you need to intervene. Ensuring servicing is done at the correct time taking into consideration scheduled service requirements, and anticipated defects which may impact your assets shortly after. Unexpected downtime due to a predicted failure is a key focus of many organisations. Do it once and do it right. You also need to be able to model and enforce asset utilisation to maximise value. Having assets stationed at low-volume locations is sure to impact your investment.

• Knowing the finances and understanding the cost profiles of your assets from procurement to decommissioning will allow you to maximise value from your assets, but even more importantly – to be able to build compelling business cases demonstrating the impacts to operational readiness. Have you modelled and communicated the impact of a 30% rise in fuel costs to the organisation from fluctuating oil prices? Outlined the impact diesel additives have on operating costs or attempted to justify increasing preventive maintenance expenditure? Keeping assets on the road could lead to increased operational hours and a corresponding reduction in fleet size.

• Ensure your assets are ready to respond by understanding day of operations requirements. Are you coordinating your vehicle decommissioning activities with shift patterns? Do you have access to and understand who is using your assets on a day-to-day basis? Is that one vehicle constantly requiring reactive maintenance due to flat batteries? The assumption may be that it is never on the charger, but you could remotely monitor the vehicle systems in real-time and identify that an activity as seemingly insignificant as the vehicle fridge being switched on at the start of a shift four days every fortnight, with the engine off, deteriorates the battery over a 6-month period.

• Environment controls are gaining a greater awareness globally and new clean air standards will affect every organisation that has a large fleet of vehicles. Are you prepared for these changes? Tightening legislation means that fleet managers will be faced with a variety of new mandates. By understanding your fleet and the use of internal combustion engines, you are going to be ahead of the curve to quickly and effectively implement change procedures to meet and exceed government guidelines.

Supporting a holistic operational asset strategy requires consideration of a multitude of processes, data modelling and aligning this to control and management of costs. Bringing this all together has positive long-term benefits across your organisation.

With certainty, you can standardise, adapt and optimise your business processes while meeting maintenance compliance, increasing technology levels and reliability thresholds. Through working with ANZ ambulance authorities for over 15 years, Trapeze, understands what ambulance organisations need from operational asset management and how to bring this together.

Contact Us to find out more about how Trapeze is assisting organisations to be ready to respond, always.

Change is never easy. During a time of crisis, change needs to happen – and fast. Over the past two months, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of transit agencies throughout North America have risen to the challenge by adjusting maintenance practices to better protect riders, operators and maintenance staff. To reinforce system safety, transit maintenance departments have undertaken two major initiatives: adjusting cleaning protocols and undertaking special campaigns.

To learn more about these changes, Trapeze conducted an industry survey from March 27 – April 4, with 24 agencies responding. When asked the degree of impact COVID-19 has had on maintenance practices, 73 percent of participating agencies reported making “moderate to significant changes.” Thirteen percent reported no changes and 14 percent were not sure.

Adjustments to Cleaning Protocols

The types of cleaning changes made in the transit industry fall into the areas of frequency, procedures and safety protocols.

Cleaning procedures and frequency

Sixty-eight percent of agencies reported instituting additional cleaning procedures as a result of COVID-19. Specifically, agencies are focusing on doing a more thorough cleaning, with a special emphasis on sanitizing high-contact surfaces on vehicles, as well as at transit facilities (stations, stops, etc.).

Figure 1: The types of cleaning changes made in the transit industry fall into the areas of frequency, procedures and safety protocols.

Recently, WSP Canada created a report on public transit responses to COVID-19, creating a useful list of the high-contact surface areas in which to focus these increased cleaning efforts. The full list can be found here, but key vehicle surfaces include steering wheels, fareboxes, seats, door handles, exit buttons, handrails and poles. High-contact surfaces cleaned more often at transit facilities include kiosks, turnstiles, benches, railings, bike racks and restroom surfaces.

Not surprisingly, cleaning frequency has increased as a result of COVID-19, with 64 percent of respondents noting a change. Most agencies are disinfecting much more frequently such as after each trip, at the end of the alignment or hourly. Deep cleans vary from agency to agency. Some are deep cleaning more often (daily), while others are doing fewer deep cleans to focus time on more frequent contact-point cleaning. Off-cycle cleanings are happening on an as-needed basis for vehicles that carried a known COVID-19 infected operator or customer.

Cleaning products

It was a bit surprising that only 41 percent of participating agencies reported changing cleaning products by switching to stronger cleaning agents, disinfecting sprays and sanitizing wipes. Various commercial products, with powerful active ingredients including hydrogen peroxide, sodium hypochlorite and quaternary ammonium, are used to combat the virus throughout the industry. 

For drivers and maintenance staff, hand sanitizers with at least 70 percent alcohol are frequently used. Disinfectant fogging or misting of vehicles, particularly any with a suspected COVID-19 positive passenger, is another common technique. For a detailed list of specific U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleaning products that meet EPA’s criteria for use against SARS-CoV-2, see here. 

Safety protocol adjustments

More frequent cleanings using stronger products has resulted in agencies taking additional measures to protect their staff. Sixty-four percent of agencies reported adjusting their safety protocols as a result of COVID-19. For frontline staff (cleaners, mechanics), there is a significant increase in the use of personal protective equipment. These changes make sense for the safety of staff who are using strong cleaning agents throughout the day.

To maintain social distance, agencies are reporting changes in how maintenance staff are interacting with each other in the workplace – changes in how they conduct meetings, training and work assignments. Survey respondents reported fewer in-person meetings, switching to remote learning (where possible) and limiting the number of mechanics and cleaners per shift.

Agencies are also leveraging their Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems more fully to maintain social distancing within the maintenance shop environment. Supervisors are assigning work to technicians within the system (without physical interaction). New cleaning procedure checklists are displayed to cleaners on-screen. Technicians and storekeepers can interact using the EAM system’s self-service features to request parts and tools, lookup vehicle history, etc.

Campaigns to protect drivers

Agencies are not just adjusting their cleaning protocols. They are also undertaking special vehicle and facility campaigns to further protect drivers and riders. Some of these projects are to encourage social distancing – i.e., removing or sectioning seats on vehicles. Others are installing signage at stations and stops to remind passengers to maintain at least six feet of distance.

Figure 2: COVID-19 Fleet and Facilities Maintenance Campaigns.

These one-time projects involve maintenance retrofitting all buses. Installing plexiglass driver shields or changing the seat configuration to provide a safe buffer zone (no seats immediately behind the driver), are two examples. Figure 2 shows other common campaigns occurring in the industry.

Track it or it didn’t happen

Transit agencies report several ongoing challenges while adjusting workflow practices in response to COVID-19. Some agencies noted that staff are not taking the situation seriously enough, while others report staff struggling to track the cleanings they perform using the computer. Disregard for proper procedures can’t happen during a pandemic. The safety of staff and passengers depend on it. These are important issues that need to be addressed through additional training.

Equally important is to properly track all these new COVID-19 activities – cleaning protocols and maintenance campaigns – in your maintenance management system. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Keolis Commuter Services (Boston) put together a change management campaign to ensure their staff correctly use their Trapeze asset management system. The company mounted posters throughout the maintenance facilities saying, “If it’s not in Trapeze, it never happened.”

This message has never been more important than it is right now. It is critical agencies track all new procedures in their asset management system of record to document all the good work agencies are performing. Doing so will give the general public the type of reassurance they need to rebuild transit ridership levels post COVID-19.

Originally published at: https://www.masstransitmag.com/

Written by Brett Koenig -  Industry Solutions Manager EAM, Trapeze Group.

Introduction

When the first Cobb and Co coach ran from Melbourne to Bendigo, it left the Criterion Hotel in Collins St every morning promptly at 6:00am (Sundays excepted).

They overnighted in Castlemaine and were off at 6:00am the next day for Bendigo. A timetable en-route may well have read “Cobb and Co to Castlemaine will be here at 12:30”.

If you were in Keilor, Gisborne or Woodend, you had a pretty good idea when the daily coach was coming through and you would get to the stop with time to spare.

Speed was important, so drivers would sound a bugle one mile out and groomsmen would ready the next team of horses to minimise changeover time. If you were a passenger and you happen to miss the coach, there was always tomorrow. (Unless, of course, it was Sunday.)

Having published them, we as transport professionals strive to deliver on our promise. Broken axles, muddy tracks and floods may have been replaced with rail crossings, car accidents and unrelenting peak hour delays but all these challenges must be overcome to keep services running to the timetable.

What is Headway?

As public transport demand grows, service frequencies increase.

Eventually a service becomes so frequent a passenger no longer needs a timetable; they know they can just roll up at the stop and a bus will shortly pick them up. This then removes the need for a timetable at the stop, as a notice that a bus will be at the stop in less than 10 minutes will suffice.

This situation portrays a 10-minute headway. Running this in theory is straightforward: start a trip every 10 minutes and run all buses to time. At least, that is the plan – but unfortunately, traffic and physics failed to read the playbook, so what is delivered is often very different.

Making Headway Management Happen

Buses get delayed for many reasons: traffic, large crowds at a stop, elderly people looking for change – the list is as long as it is entertaining. Despite our best efforts to meet a timetable, certain issues refuse to go away: for example, when a bus is caught in heavy congestion, it is really hard to move it faster than the cars!

From a customer experience perspective, passengers generally have a high-level understanding of how traffic (and other circumstances beyond an operator’s control) can cause delays. What they don’t understand is why this will result in a really, really long wait succeeded by two buses showing up at the same time.

Operators try and deal with this through planning. Two common techniques are:

• To keep the routes short (reducing the ability for the headway to get too large), and
• To introduce more layover at timing points (giving buses the opportunity to reset).

However, these methods are at odds with high frequency services. Whilst increased layover helps get back to the timetable, it is not popular with passengers.

Sure, you could fire off a bus from the terminus every 10 minutes, but there is no way to control these services other than having a supervisor with a clipboard standing by the roadside with a watch, manually timing the services and talking to drivers as needed.

Even gathering performance data will be difficult, as resource restrictions mean you can only measure how each bus is progressing at a small number of points along the route. Compounding this, drivers will not be able to see the vehicle ahead of them on their current route.

The result is that real-time intervention is almost impossible and headway management generally happens after the fact.

It is designed to present the public with as close to a consistent arrival time as possible, even if there are service delays. It helps operators spread the buses out so that two buses on the same route do not arrive at the same stop together.

When combined with high frequency services, headway management even eliminates the need to publish timetables and gives passengers the confidence that a bus will be arriving very soon.

Who is Using It?

Although there is a lot of talk about headway-managed routes being the latest big thing, it is not new. Shuttle bus services are often run on a headway basis and a number of high frequency routes in many cities have long been advertised as ‘turn up and go’. However, they were manually controlled or not controlled at all.

Technology has reached a point where public transport authorities can now deliver on the promise. Some examples of agencies where this is done are:

There are many other progressive cities across the world where headway is used to measure regularity, including Barcelona, Milan, New York, Paris and Vancouver [3]. In Australia and New Zealand, regularity is typically measured by on-time terminal departures. However, the limitations this places on delivering better customer outcomes are now becoming more widely recognised.

The possibility of technology changing this paradigm sparked a great deal of interest at the UITP ANZ Customer Experience Roundtable in August 2018, with many attendees recognising the benefits that effectively-managed headway can bring to all stakeholders.

Choosing the Right Tools for Success

KPIs and Metrics

To track service reliability, authorities have used:

• EWT,
• Actual waiting time (AWT),
• Standard deviations of the difference between actual and scheduled headways,
• Wait assessment, and
• Service regularity.

Each technique has its own benefits and drawbacks [3], but EWT has emerged as the indicator of choice. For high frequency services, EWT is an objective measure that can be calculated across routes and is relatively easy to fold into operating contracts, with a history of producing excellent results.

Passengers are the immediate beneficiary of the right metric and good headway management because irregularity in headway discourages commuters’ use of public transport [4] and increases passenger discomfort [5]. Furthermore, as passengers on high frequency routes are more likely to arrive at the stop randomly [6], a small improvement in EWT will deliver the best outcome to the most passengers.

By measuring EWT and encouraging operators to reduce this, transport authorities will consistently deliver better services that passengers can rely on.

The Right Technology

Public transport companies also benefit from the use of EWT as a metric. The core technologies used to monitor and report on EWT give operators an instant view of operations for both scheduled services and headway services. Whilst both service types are scheduled in the normal manner, once they start running there is a need to clearly identify each route by type and give operators continuous EWT statistics on all routes.

Another key tool is the development of automatic alerts on Bus Bunching. This lets operators see issues whilst they can be fixed and before they become too serious.

The right technology will bring transport authorities a real-time view of the transport network, but more importantly it will monitor and measure headway.

It should deliver the right visibility and controls to operators and allow them to adjust operations in real time to meet EWT targets. This ensures that buses arrive with greater regularity and improves the level of service delivered to the public.

Incentives

To encourage operators to be proactive and course-correct services in real time, transport authorities can offer substantial performance bonuses as an incentive. Transport for London, for example, pays up to 15% of the contract value in bonuses.

Conclusion

Just like the Cobb and Co services from Melbourne to Bendigo, the delivery of headway is dependent on a number of factors.

Freeman Cobb saw the opportunity for improved services and filled that need with high-speed services, enabled by changing stations every 15 miles and the right technology (in Cobb’s case it was imported Concord coaches, which had been designed for travel in the American West).

Transport authorities must have a similar vision to drive service change. They need to put the right headway management technology in place to drive operators to achieve a higher standard of service delivery KPIs.

Operators then need to be focussed on making this work. Management personnel in these companies must adapt and accept that they need to be even more closely partnered with their drivers than normal, as it is the driver who must make use of the information the tools provide and self-manage the gaps between buses.

Only the passenger needs to do nothing as properly delivered, headway-managed routes will give them a better service, with less waiting and higher levels of reliability.

When Henry Lawson wrote ‘The Lights of Cobb and Co’, perhaps he could sense the excitement of the public for a better transport system. That excitement is still here today – it is up to us to deliver on the promise. Headway management can help us do just that!

References

[1] Transport for London, “London’s Bus Contracting and Tendering Process, lbsl-tendering-and-contracting.pdf,” Transport for London, London, 2015.

[2] B. S. C. t. I. S. T. t. BCM, “Bus Services Continue to Improve Since Transition to BCM,” 04 09 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/page.aspx?c=2&id=752cc877-00a8-4e0c-8732-11e3d8ffa126.

[3] M. Trompet, X. Liu and D. J. Graham, “Development of key performance indicator to compare regularity of service between urban bus operators,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transprotation Research Board No. 2116, pp. 33-41, 2011.

[4] A. Polus, “Modeling and Measurements of Bus Service Reliability.,” Transportation Research, Vol. 12, pp. 253-256, 1978.

[5] M. Simeunovic, M. Lekovic, Z. Papic and P. Pavle, “Influence of vehicle headway irregularity in public transport on in-vehicle passenger comfort,” Scientific Research and Essays Vol. 7(32), pp. 2874-2881, 2012.

[6] D. R. a. G. C. Csikos, “Investigating Consistency in Transit Passenger Arrivals: Insights from Longitudinal Automated Fare Collection Data,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2042, pp. 12-19, 2008.

Technology detail is often hidden from system users and business managers – until it isn’t. The constant technological improvements being made to security, performance and reliability don’t often make it to the press – not only is the subject matter pretty dry, but generally these changes have very little impact on most users and system administrators.

These constant security and stability updates are necessary to maintain a modern enterprise system.  In addition, more modern versions of the databases, reporting engines and core libraries used by TIMS and Austrics are leveraged to provide new and enhanced business features. Security updates are essential to ensure that systems are resilient and critical business information remains protected.

CENTOS Linux 6 reaches end of life late 2020 and is one of the changes that will impact on both users and system administrators.

Both TIMS and Austrics run on the same operating system platform, a platform that surprisingly powers both the world’s fastest supercomputer and the humble and pervasive Android phone. Each release of the CENTOS Linux operating system (the specific version of the Linux operating system used by Trapeze) is commercially maintained and supported for at least a decade. The latest version, CENTOS 8 which was released late 2019, will be supported through to 2029. PostgreSQL (the database that powers TIMS) just hit version 12 with support planned through to the end of 2024. 

The flip side to the release of these newer technologies are that older releases of these operating systems and databases are now hitting their end of life dates – meaning that ongoing support such as security and maintenance updates are no longer made available. Cloud computing platforms such as Azure and AWS may no longer run the older operating systems, or at a minimum limit your options such as Disaster Recovery. 

Upgrading these core technologies can be disruptive if not managed appropriately. Planning is required, and decisions made such as choosing when and how to upgrade and whether to take the opportunity to upgrade to new hardware or migrate to managed hosting infrastructure. As with any disruptive process, strategic thinkers will seek opportunities and likely end up in an improved situation. The opportunities in this case include migration to a cloud environment, implementing Disaster Recovery, improving performance and reliability, replacing aging hardware or even archiving old data.

Many clients are reviewing cloud hosted systems rather than relying on hardware that may be put at risk. Cloud based infrastructure allows staff to access the systems remotely, and critical data is backed up in multiple locations more frequently. Servers can also be cost-effectively expanded or scaled down to meet shifting demands such as when new depots or regions are rolled into the business.

If you are running CENTOS 6, you will need to start to plan your migration to a new CENTOS platform in 2020 in order to remain on a supported version. Moving to CENTOS version 8 is likely your best option. If you are running TIMS, updating your database is also highly recommended.

TIMS 3.6 is certified to operate on the latest versions of CENTOS 8 and PostgreSQL 12, providing the maximum flexibility when reviewing options. 

Our Professional Services Team are highly experienced and ready to support you in the move to new environments. We can help plan the move, including reviewing options to ensure the move has minimal down time, and your business ends up in the best possible position for the future. If moving to the cloud interests you, Trapeze can work with your IT team to provide advice, and can even provide a range of managed services from assisted support through to Trapeze taking full responsibility for your new environment.

Contact us and ask for a more detailed brochure on the technology changes. We can also arrange a no-cost, no-obligation audit of your systems to ensure you have the right information available to progress a decision.

The need for operators and authorities to manage ferry services as an integrated part of a city’s public transport has led to the uptake of integrated technology to manage multimodal networks. This effectively allows organisations to use the same tools to manage multiple land and water-based transport modes.

Cities with coastal and river networks benefit from integrating ferry services into their public transport offering, giving users the convenience of transport routes that link land and water through regular, reliable ferry services.

For all transport operators, including ferry, mobility is a key issue.

Not only do operators, maintenance teams and management need a shared view of their assets on water, they also need to see the connecting assets that are essential to the network – jetties, pontoons, mooring systems, dry dock facilities and dockside structures.

Addressing the issue of mobility, an asset maintenance platform gives organisation-wide visibility through a real-time shared view accessible by all users, whether in an office or in the field, on tablet or desktop.

Linking with pre-existing transport services including bus, train, taxi, rideshare and e-mobility solutions ensures ferries can operate as part of an effective overall transport system.

With greater mobility through handheld devices, maintenance teams in the field can see which assets need attention, along with details of parts or components that will be required to complete the task.

Management can access the platform to check servicing history, status, checklists and schedules. Reported incidents can be time-stamped, then checked against the maintenance log (and accompanying photographs) to validate tasks.

Predictive maintenance automates task updates, for more effective ongoing asset management and compliance. This improved visibility and timeliness of maintenance and repairs strengthens the reliability and safety of assets.

Untether from old-school methods

The old-school way of working – tethered to a laptop – isn’t effective for a mobile workforce required to traverse geographic locations.

Small, handheld devices let users see task checklists, along with photographic evidence of asset condition and any maintenance or repairs needed.

Operators relying on outdated, fixed technology and paper-based scheduling can improve their overall efficiency through integrated digital transformation.

Without workforce mobility, once a task has been completed, the time needed to update paper records or offline systems prevents other users in the organisation getting an immediate view of the asset condition, service record and status.

For transport organisations running to tight schedules and operating within strict maintenance budgets, such visibility gaps can be time-consuming and costly.

Enabling workforce mobility via lightweight, handheld devices is no longer a ‘nice to have’ or a future wish. It’s essential to ensure that multimodal transport networks are connected and operate efficiently while optimising running costs and workforce resources.

The technology exists. Many ferry operators are leveraging the same systems that are being used by bus operators for tasks including workforce management, route planning and scheduling, and resource planning.

With tailor-made software ready to go, it’s never been easier for ferry operators to tear themselves away from paper and get on board the digital revolution.

So next time you’re travelling by ferry and see one of the deckhands looking at an iPad or crew members taking photographs with their smart devices, you’ll know that the latest technology is helping keep the network afloat and getting you safely to shore.

Paperless mobility solutions for ferry operators can lead to outcomes such as longer asset lifespan, better use of workforce time and resources, shorter waiting times or asset downtime, streamlined maintenance interchanges, and improved operations. 

For more information on how Trapeze technology helps manage multimodal transport networks, get in touch to arrange a demo.