Brihan-Mumbai Electric Supply & Transport Improves Scheduling, Reduces Costs

In 2013, BEST installed Trapeze’s planning and scheduling system. Now, BEST schedulers can create many different duty scheduling scenarios within 2 - 3 days instead of 4 - 5 weeks.

BEST at a glance

BEST is one of the largest public transport companies in India.

It is owned by the Municipal Corporation of Mumbai and was first established in 1873. BEST’s transport wing is considered one of the best in the world, carrying 5 million passengers daily through 64,000 trips, operated on more than 500 bus routes with 4,200 buses.

In 2013, BEST installed Trapeze’s Planning & Scheduling system. Now, BEST schedulers can create many different duty scheduling scenarios within two to three days instead of four to five weeks.

Challenges

Before implementing Trapeze’s Planning & Scheduling solution, BEST employees had to manually create schedules once in every 4 months.

It would take BEST schedulers four to five weeks to put together duty schedules and present it to the drivers and conductors. When vehicle operators had specific scheduling requests or pointed out certain difficulties with the schedule, schedulers had to go back to the drawing board and manually re-draw the schedule to include those changes.

This process of manually creating duty schedules was not only tedious and time-consuming; it was also inefficient and costly.

Solution

In 2013, BEST installed Trapeze’s Planning & Scheduling solution. Now, BEST schedulers can create many different duty scheduling scenarios within two to three days instead of weeks, even when setting various constraints and parameters.

With its comprehensive and fully automated functionality, this solution also helps BEST eliminate the possibility of human error that comes with manually adjusting huge amounts of data.

The Trapeze Planning & Scheduling solution combines powerful algorithms with comprehensive parameter settings to quickly generate various cost-effective operator assignment scenarios. The system is configured with BEST’s specific rules and requirements in mind.

Taking all these parameters into consideration, the solution reviews hundreds of thousands of possibilities to put together a duty schedule. It would be impossible for schedulers to do this manually.

Once BEST planners and Trapeze experts started creating various duty scheduling scenarios for the first 12 depots, it immediately became clear that it was possible to achieve significant savings in terms of duties performed without affecting the current number of staff.

Conclusion

Trapeze’s Planning & Scheduling solution reduced the time spent by BEST employees in creating duty schedules from nearly four weeks of work to a mere few days.

In addition to this significant reduction in administrative hours, BEST was able to reduce the number of duties by almost 4% without affecting the actual service levels. The Trapeze solution enabled BEST to realise these efficiencies by shortening meal breaks, efficiently utilising relief points, mixing of routes and offering an overall tightening of all schedules while still adhering to all rules.

Using Trapeze’s Planning & Scheduling solution has allowed BEST to recoup costs without sacrificing efficiency.

Trapeze’s Planning & Scheduling solution will also facilitate easier integration with BEST’s metro and mono railway timetables. This could result in savings, enabling BEST to utilise more amenities to commuters and to focus on modernisation.

We at Trapeze look forward to helping BEST Undertaking in Mumbai save time and money for many more years to come!

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