A Novel Methodology for Traffic Monitoring and Efficient Data Propagation in ...
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1. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
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IIn the mobile communications world,
forging successful relationships with like-minded
vendors often separates great companies from average
ones. These are the relationships that expand horizons,
deepen knowledge and set the stage for future growth.
The relationship between Mentor Engineering and
Metro Bus in St. Cloud, MN began in the late 1990s.
That was when Mentor brought their Mobile Data
Computers (MDCs) to Metro Bus’ paratransit fleet and
ushered in a new era of productivity and organizational
efficiency for this Midwestern transit agency.
Mentor Streets®
boosts efficiency for St. Cloud’s Metro Bus
2. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
FFast forward to 2004 and technological
changes were sweeping the transportation industry.
Mentor had just launched the Beta version of
Streets®, an all-in-one fixed route transit package
that included software modules for in-vehicle
mobile computing, Computer-Aided Dispatch
and Automatic Vehicle Location (CAD/AVL),
incident management, report generation, trip
building, and scheduling. And Tony Kellen,
Director of Operations and Technology at St.
Cloud Metro Bus was searching for a technological
solution to move the fixed-route side of his
organization to new levels of customer service
and efficiency. The business relationship between
Mentor and Metro Bus represented the perfect
blend of need and opportunity.
One of the first Systems Engineers Mentor assigned
to the St. Cloud site was Shubh Sidhu. He knew
there was a great deal of work ahead and hit the
ground running to implement the best system
possible for Metro Bus.
“At the beginning, there was an emphasis on
learning how St. Cloud conducted business as a
fixed-route operation,” says Shubh. “Much of our
early development work was based on identifying
the functionality required by this particular fixed-
route operation. As a team of interdisciplinary
software developers and system engineers,we had to
align what we were building technically to what St.
Cloud needed in a business environment. The key
questions were‘What will the application look like?’
and ‘How does it process changes to a fixed-route
schedule?’”The answers would transform St. Cloud
Metro Bus into an award-winning organization in
the years ahead.
The relationship
beween Mentor
and Metro Bus
represented the
perfect blend of need
and opportunity.
The power of
Mentor StreetsAnd cad/avl functionality
3. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
Mentor streets
improves and
expedites public
transit operations
by enabling timely
and wireless
communication
beween in-office
and in-vehicle
personnel
4. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
“The single biggest impact for our organization is
knowing where our vehicles are,” says Tony. “It’s
important to make our drivers aware of their on-
time performance and running their routes closer
to schedule. For us, information is the key.”
The AVL module of Streets® gives dispatchers the
ability to know where their vehicles are at all times
without having to look at a chart. Dispatchers have
a screen that shows them any vehicle they choose,
what route they are on, and who the driver is at
any time.
The process of talking to a driver directly used to
be much more complicated before Streets® was
introduced. The dispatcher had to complete about
five steps and there were reams of paper to sort
through. The process is more streamlined today.
“With Streets, you look at the screen, you select
a vehicle, you see who’s driving it; you know
where they’re going and where they’ve been. It’s
all about efficiency.”
Serving the Fastest
Growingmetropolis in minnesota
TThe City of St. Cloud is located approxi-
mately 60 miles northwest of the Twin Cities of
Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN. With a population
of just over 250,000 people and a large university
contingent, the public transit system is a critical part
of the community. As you would expect, people use
transit to get to work and school.But the system also
must provide service to the elderly and disabled. It’s
a tall task and those at St. Cloud engage forward
thinking and technological solutions like Mentor
Streets® to meet the demands this organization faces
day-to-day.
Mentor Streets® improves and expedites public
transit operations by enabling timely and wireless
communication between in-office and in-vehicle
personnel. It sounds simple, but the impact of real-
time communication on an organization like Metro
Bus, is anything but simplistic. Tony has noticed
improved office morale, a significant decrease in
customer complaints, and improved clarity around
operations. Ultimately, this translates as better
allocation of funds, an increased ridership, and
better-managed resources.As a result,Streets® gives
management the capability to take the pulse of the
organization at any given moment. With 44 Metro
Bus vehicles operating at any given time, combining
fixed route and demand response services, Streets®
acts as the hub to real-time decision-making within
the organization.
5. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
St.Cloud understands that technological innovation
is the means to operational efficiency. In 2004,
Metro Bus implemented Mentor Streets®, (a fully
integrated wireless communication solution that
includes software applications for computer aided
dispatch/automatic vehicle location (CAD/AVL),
incident management, and mobile computing. The
single biggest consequence of Streets® technology
on Metro Bus is efficiency. Its impact is experienced
across the board. “Knowing where our vehicles
are makes our drivers aware of their on-time
performance,and helps them run their routes closer
to schedule. It gives dispatchers the ability to know,
all the time, where the vehicles are without having
to look at a chart. Our supervisors can pull up a
vehicle any time and see where it is. The dispatch
center has a screen which shows a vehicle, what
route the vehicle is on, and who the driver is, at any
time,” explains Tony.
Technology
T
he American Public Transportation Association (APTA) named St. Cloud
Metro Bus the #1 Transit System in North America in 2007 and 1990.
Metro Bus was awarded these industry accolades because of their
commitment to safety, significant ridership increases and their application
of technological innovations.
Inventing Solutions
Tony Kellen and his son Tyler have moved St.
Cloud technology further by developing MetroNet.
MetroNet ties into the various back-end databases
used by St. Cloud Metro Bus. “We have a secure
gateway through our firewall, so MetroNet allows
users to log on to the system from any computer,
anywhere in the world,” says Tony. MetroNet
features a Forms Management System, which
allows for extensive reporting capabilities. This
system streamlines paperwork for employees and
management. When it comes to filing accident
claims, Tony receives the information he needs
instantly. As Tony explains, “The supervisor
populates the claim form through MetroNet, and
as soon as they save the claim,an email is sent to me
telling me all the essential facts of the accident as I
want them. It’s customizable.” This ease of access to
information and operational efficiency delivered by
technological innovation allows Metro Bus to focus
on their winning dedication to quality of service.
Mentor Streets® CAD Window
6. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
When Erin Brook, another member of Mentor’s
systems engineering group joined the St. Cloud
Metro Bus project in 2006, the work dealt with
in-vehicle environments, and Erin chalked
up hundreds of unbilled Beta hours integrating
Ranger® computers and Mentor Mobility, the
accompanying mobile application, with its in-office
CAD/AVL software counterpart. The job tested
both Erin’s wireless expertise and the stability
of XGate, Mentor’s immutable
middleware which links office to
vehicle over virtually any network.
“By the time I became involved,
we had a good process in place for
managing issues as they came up,”
saysErin.“WithStreets®Dispatch,
I had little to do in terms of fixes
or work arounds, which is good.”
With so much technology being added to the
organization in a relatively short period of time, it
would have been understandable if there was some
Easy
making
Technology
resistance from the drivers and dispatchers. But St.
Cloud was prepared for that scenario.
St. Cloud recruited four of its lead drivers
to test Ranger® in the pilot phase. These were
seasoned drivers who had recieved Department of
Transportation training and Transit Ambassador
training. “It builds a little anticipation with the
other drivers who ask‘how come we don’t get to use
those?” says Tony.
The lead drivers became comfortable with the new
technology and provided
valuable feedback to
St. Cloud about the
reliability of Ranger®.
Then the second phase of
implementation began.
“Once the overall system
was in place, we invited
the drivers to play with
Ranger®. At the same time, we told them to expect
issues,” says Tony. “We conditioned them to expect
a few basic problems in this initial phase. We do
thatwithallof ourtechnologies.WithMentorthere
In the seven years we’ve used Mentor’s XGa
and forth between drivers and dispatch
had a communication problem
“
”
WWhile Streets was implemented in St. Cloud
in 2004, Mentor had other technical innovations
to add to the Metro Bus fleet. In March of 2006,
MentorreplacedtheMDCsinMetroBus’fleetwith
Rangers®, its rugged, multi-functional Windows
CE in-vehicle devices, to give the drivers in the
Metro Bus fleet a platform to operate Streets®.
Implementation
7. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
simplified by the interface which Streets® presented.
The schedule, for example looked similar on
screen as it did on paper which made the learning
environment comfortable. That was just one aspect
of the learning curve that Metro Bus faced.
Learning Streets® wasn’t an issue for those at
St. Cloud. “It’s actually been pretty easy,” says
Tony. “Most of the employees are using the basic
functionality and they know how it works.They can
locate where the vehicles are,find out who is driving
them, and see what their on-time performance
looks like. That tells you something right there.”
Metro Bus has built a reputation as an organization
that embraces leading-edge technology. The
use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to
plot bus stops and geo-code them onto a linear
map is just one example of St. Cloud’s advanced
technological mindset. Purchasing their own 800
MHz transmission tower in 1998 to operate the
Metro Bus wireless communications network is
yet another example of how St. Cloud embraces
technology and anticipates business requirements
years before their implementation.
Metro Bus uses Mentor’s wireless middleware
product, XGate®, to bolster the effectiveness of
the Metro Bus fleet. XGate® middleware makes
real-time communication between drivers and
head office easy and efficient. XGate® provides the
communication medium that enables Streets® to
ate middleware to move information back
in our Dial-A-Ride service, we have never
were pleasant surprises,” says Tony. “Ultimately,
I’d have to say our drivers are hooked on Mentor
Ranger®,” he continued.
Ranger® has become so ingrained in the lives of
Metro Bus drivers, group sentiment borders on
revolt if their key in-vehicle device isn’t installed in
their assigned bus.
With implementation handled effectively by both
Mentor and Metro Bus, the drivers and dispatchers
then learned about Streets® and its functionality.
On the dispatcher side, the transition from a paper-
heavy environment to a virtually paper-free one was
XMM automatically and intuitively catalogs all the
mobile devices in St. Cloud’s fleet. It generates a
comprehensive list that shows which hardware and
which software are in each vehicle. And when it’s
time to update, XMM™ makes this process simple.
XMM greatly compresses each data package,
using the smallest amount of bandwidth possible.
Previously, updating software meant sending
someone to each vehicle equipped with a laptop,
which is a time-consuming and inefficient task.
Now, the data and the vehicles receiving updates
can be controlled from Metro Bus headquarters.
send route, schedule and
pattern information directly
to each Ranger® unit before
each driver’s day begins.
“In the seven years we’ve used
Mentor’sXGate®middleware
product to move information
back and forth between
drivers and dispatch in our
Dial-A-Ride service, we have
never had a communication
It’s
actually
been
pretty
easy
“
”problem,” says Tony. “That’s one of the reasons we
chose to extend the XGate and Streets® product to
our fixed-route operation.”
8. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
Successful change requires more than
a new process or technology: it requires the
engagement and participation of the people
involved. With St. Cloud Metro Bus being a Beta
site for Mentor Streets®, Tony Kellen, Director
of Operations and Technology, allowed change
management to provide him with a framework for
managing not only the technology, but the people
side of this transition as well. To ensure successful
change management with this new technology,
Tony’s role was to interpret, communicate, and
enable—not to impose new technology on an
unsuspectingaudienceandmerelyhopeforthebest.
Throughout the implementation of Streets®, Tony
worked directly with all strata of staff—from bus
driver to maintenance worker—in order to engage
them around Mentor technology. In Tony’s words,
“This allows them to see what the technology does,
how it works, and what its value is.”
If change finds an organization unprepared, it can
be deadly. By consistently engaging his staff around
the reality of implementing new technology, Tony
Kellen minimized resistance and prepared them
to deal effectively with change. Once he knew
they had a workable package, he conditioned
employees to expect problems in the initial stages.
This allows the employee to move past the problem
and focus on learning the solution. This juncture
is where Mentor Streets® lends itself to creating
meaningful change for St. Cloud Metro Bus.
Adopting and accepting new technology is made
more seamless with the flat learning curve native
to Streets®. Tony believes that learning the Streets®
application, especially for dispatchers, “has been
pretty easy. I don’t think that there’s really been a
difficult time getting the understanding and the ap-
titude there.” Emphasizing the positive aspects of
Mentor technology has been key to sustaining and
reinforcing change.“For example, when introducing
new drivers to Ranger®, we talk about how great it
is to fill out forms electronically versus keeping pa-
per records.We reinforce the benefits of automated
schedule adherence prompts so they can focus on
their customers and their driving,” explains Tony
Essentially, a systematic approach to change man-
agement not only allows change to be realized suc-
cessfully on an individual and organizational level,
but with Mentor technology in hand, it improved
the bottom line for St. Cloud Metro Bus.
Astructured approach to organizational transformation,
change management enables the transition from a current
state, to a desired future state of operation. Change management
for St. Cloud Metro Bus meant managing the shift from being
a technological innovator to a technological powerhouse in
the transit industry.
“Dig the well before you are thirsty”
- Chinese Proverb
Change
Management
9. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g
Disorder and
Confusion
Transitions rarely go smoothly
or as planned. When an organi-
zation implements change, new
challenges are faced every day.
Normalize surprise.
Unclear
Organizational
Identity
Identity is in flux. The company
is in the process of assuming a
new identity, but it has not yet
been established or accepted
within the organization.
Continue to articulate the
benefits of the new system.
Disorientation,
Confusion and Anxiety
Everyone faces uncertainty
about the present and the future.
New roles and responsibilities
haven’t been clearly defined, and
there is an overwhelming sense
of uncertainty.
Give people permission to make
mistakes.
Defensiveness and
Blaming
During times of transition, when things feel
precarious, it is common to blame others and
project one’s own frustrations. Defensiveness is a
response to feeling threatened.
Provide staff with timely information and engage
them around the possibilities and the situation.
Change
Response
From Technological innovator
To Technological Powerhouse
1.
Transition can be a
creative time, as former
structures are dissolved
and former roles are
irrelevant. When past
processes no longer
apply, people can see new
possibilities and gain new
insights. During transition,
people with particular
skills and ingenuity may
have more opportunity to
play important roles and
demonstrate abilities that
are newly valuable.
2.
3.
4.
5. Letting Go and
Hanging On
People undergoing
organizational transition try to
cling to a familiar environment
as they go through this process.
Until new identities and roles
are established and defined, it is
natural to hang on to what one
was, and what one knows.
Defend your path to change
and stand firm around the
process of transition. Articulate
expectations of staff.
10. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g1 0
A
Transit Association (APTA), who named Metro
Bus the 2007 #1 Transit Agency in North Ameri-
ca in the category of 1 to 4 million trips annually.
“We won this year because APTA looked at our
track record for the past five to seven years,” says
Tony. “We were the second system in the nation
with the Odyssey Validation Fare Collection
system. St. Cloud worked with Mentor to develop
its wireless capabilities. The wireless capabilities
of Mentor XGate, Ranger® and Streets® worked
together to make our organization more efficient.
The award was the result of a combination of our
successful initiatives.” Metro Bus also won the
award in 1990.
As a beta site for Streets in 2004,
Metro Bus played a part in the technology
development process of the Mentor Streets®
software. No system is perfect from the beginning,
so once Streets® went live in 2004, Mentor’s
engineers installed a number of fixes and software
patches to make the system operate as it should.
For Joy Uniat, Regional Sales Manager for Mentor,
Metro Bus was an ideal candidate for a Beta site.
“Tony was chosen because he really enjoys tech-
nology,” says Joy. “He provided very intuitive and
knowledgeable feedback in terms of how technol-
ogy works within the transit industry.”
Joy continued: “St. Cloud is an opera-
tionally sound transit agency and that
is what you need in a Beta site. We
knew they’d experienced a few bumps
in the road with Streets® as a new technology, so it
was important that St. Cloud had their operation
down pat. A lot happens in a conventional imple-
mentation phase, let alone in the deployment of
a Beta product.”
Over the next few months, the staff at Metro Bus
began to see the tangible benefits of the CAD/
AVL, reporting and scheduling functionality.
Making Metro Bus more efficient has resulted in
better customer service and better overall perfor-
mance. Metro Bus’ reputation as a leading tran-
sit organization has gone beyond the borders of
Minnesota to the offices of the American Public
Benefits
Beta Has its
Less cost but great commitment
11. M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g11
North America to install Dial-A-Ride dispatch
software that tied that into Mentor Engineering’s
mobile computing and vehicle tracking system. A
transit signal priority deployment project, fully in-
tegrated bar-coded inventory system, and paperless
maintenance shop were all to follow. On its fixed-
route side,Metro Bus is moving forward with Men-
tor Streets®, a leading-edge CAD/AVL solution.
In addition to technology innovations, Metro Bus
implemented a program that allows university
students to swipe their student ID cards and ride
for free. This generated substantial revenue in co-
op payments from the university and increased
ridership yet again. An enormously successful
branding and advertising program rounded things
out and made “The People Picker-Uppers” a
household name in St. Cloud.
As can be expected, Metro Bus has no plans to
slow down anytime soon. Next on the agenda is
the Husky Safe Ride program. Scheduled to be
implemented in January of 2008, the Safe Ride
program will offer late-night service from the
downtown and university districts until 3:00 am.
In 1990, Metro Bus took the stage for its exemplary
safety record, modernized fleet, and dramatically in-
creased ridership rates—a tribute to its out-of-the-
box approach to problem solving.Between 1986 and
1989, Metro Bus realized a 15 to 20 per cent rider-
ship escalation per year—no small achievement.
In 1986, Metro Bus took a look at its languishing
Campus Clipper route. After some quick thinking,
they approached the University with a plan—if the
University would start charging for parking, Metro
Bus would build a Park n’ Ride facility and offer a
shuttle service to the University. As a result, the new
and improved Campus Clipper route was born,a fully
renovated transit hub put in place, and student pass
andIDprogramsimplemented.Therevenuenumbers
spoke for themselves.
Innovative ideas and business driven technologies
were Metro Bus’ winning combination for 2007.
Positioned at the forefront of technology imple-
mentation, Metro Bus was the second agency in
North America to install on-board digital video
and the state-of-the-art GFI Odyssey validating
fare collection system. They were the third site in
Metro Bus was recently awarded the Outstanding Public Transportation
System Achievement Award, making them one of the few organizations
to win this award twice—first in 1990 and again in 2007. A leader in the
advancement of public transportation in their community, Metro Bus was
recognized for excellence in the areas of efficiency and effectiveness.
Presented by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), this
distinction is given only to industry’s very best.
A winning combo for Metro Bus
Technology
A d v a n c e dand
Great Ideas
M e n t o r E n g i n e e r i n g11
