3. 3
Our Business
• Covers the whole of the West Midlands conurbation including Coventry
• Population of over 2.5m
• 1,800 buses and 5,500 staff
• 1 million passenger journeys a day
• A big, intense operation that has many challenges
• Doing anything in terms of projects makes them large ones
• Often working in partnership with our stakeholders
– Centro (ITA)
– West Midlands Police
– Local councils
4. 4
The need for technology
• Demanding highway network – City and Town centres plus the Motorway ‘box’
• Major city issues – disruption, vandalism, fraudulent travel
• Customer expectations – rising, smartphones, tablets, new users want confirmation
• Staff expectations – looking to us to help them out
• Efficiency – reduced costs
• Control – knowledge of what is happening where and when – in real time
6. 6
Customer and Staff improvements
• To retain existing and attract new customers
• Real Time – various small scale trials on the network previously
– Now could be at all stops
– On an App on smartphone or tablet
• Also has many staff benefits
– Empowerment
– Pride
– Investment
– Training
8. 8
Expanded AVL control room
• Automatic Vehicle Location control room was expanded in 2012
• Went from 7 controllers to 18 plus 1 senior controller and 1 AVL manager
• From 6 key corridors only to the ability to see any bus on any route on the network, but some 60
routes are actively managed
• £270K to set up and ongoing costs of £153K per annum – overall investment around £1m
• GPS data sent from Telematics equipment already fitted on vehicle
• Probably largest control room in the UK and certainly industry leading
• Purpose is to manage and improve EWT which is the gaps between buses
– EWT has already improved by 9 seconds from 2011 to 2012
• 2013 is its first full year and improvements are evolving
• Has allowed for centralisation of radio control
11. 11
Punctuality enhancements with technology
• Driven by AVL data
– there is a lot and it is knowing how and when to use it
– now part of our normal scheduling processes
• EWT a big focus for us on high frequency routes
– Accurate EWT data not readily available in the system
– Target of 1.2 in 2013 now being beaten
– There is a steep learning curve for Controllers
• Low frequency punctuality
– Good, clear information to allow for monitoring and updating schedules
– Different way of managing services but with same tools
12. 12
Safety and security improvements
• In 2011 and 2012 Inspectors equipped with new technology to help further reduce
fraudulent travel
• Revenue team now 22 inspectors – up from 9 in 2011
• PDA machine to identify names and addresses
• PDQ machine to take card payments at the roadside – introduced October 2012 and so far
have taken over £7,000
• Over 60,000 buses and 1.1m passengers checked in 2012
• 26,000 Standard Fare Cards issued – approx 50% issued by the PDA machines
• 239 police operations and 148 arrests
• Etching detection trial taking place – microphone on window rubber to pick up scratching
on the window film
13. 13
Traffilog - Telematics
• Introduced in mid 2010 – primarily to save fuel
• Traffilog can be used in a variety of ways
– Used at the roadside to track vehicles
– Used to tell the drivers how they have been driving
– Used to encourage fuel efficient and more comfortable driving
– Used to look back at incidents identified through accidents, claims or complaints
• MPG improved 2% from Q2 2010 to Q3 2011
• Average driver ‘grades’ improved by 20% during 2012
• App accessed on tablet at the roadside to assist with service monitoring and customer
information
14. 14
Roadside technology for staff
• Rolling out mobile phones and now Blackberries for inspectors and route managers
• First 20 tablets now in use
• Tablets allow greater use of e-mails at the roadside and the real time filling in of reports to
improve efficiency, as well as to track vehicles and to give customer information
• Encouraging roadside staff to take control of services, communicate with our customers and
keep the information flowing
• Twitter in Wolverhampton for the 126 and 529 – Route Manager responsible
• AVL can tweet and update the website
• Encourage use and adapt business methods to support this roadside technology
15. 15
Working with partners’ technology
• Through our Safer Travel partnership we have use of the Control Room at Centro House
• Cost around £1.25m to our partners but saves up to £500K per year
• 50 screens and up to 800 cameras
• Over 900 incidents dealt with in first nine months
• Members of our Safer Travel team can work there and share information
• At busy times we can place staff in the Control Room to monitor congestion, protests or big
events
• Hope to get involved with the City Council traffic control rooms in 2013
• All part of our ongoing and successful campaign to reduce crime and anti social behaviour on
buses
16. 16
Future Developments
• Realise the true value of tablets at the roadside and for others
– engineering
• Work out how to harness the vast AVL data we have
– Use in scheduling
– Share with stakeholders
– Highway design
• Embed technology in our processes
– Make it part of what we do