19 August 2022 – Buses across England will benefit from up to £130 million of government support, ensuring services keep running and millions of passengers can continue using affordable transport.
The funding package announced today will cover 6 months from October 2022 to March 2023, and builds on almost 2 years’ worth of unprecedented government support to keep bus networks running.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “This funding will ensure millions across the country can continue to use vital bus services, and brings the total we’ve provided to the sector throughout the pandemic to almost £2 billion.”
The government is also investing £3 billion in bus services by 2025, including over £1 billion to improve fares, services and infrastructure, and a further £525 million for zero emission buses.
29 July 2022 – Family-owned Tanat Valley Coaches, on the Shropshire-Welsh border, has chosen the Omnibus cloud-native depot allocation software solution to improve operational efficiency and support business growth.
The investment in OmniDAS comes following the operator’s acquisition of bus services in and around Oswestry town centre in September 2021, previously operated by Arriva.
Founded in 1921, Tanat Valley Coaches provides public bus services and school transport across a vast area of Mid Wales and Shropshire and has a fleet of 40 vehicles. The operator also offers excursions, tours and private hires, and works closely with Shrewsbury Town Football Club, ferrying their fans to and from home games, and helping supporters to attend matches further afield.
Chris Chadd, Managing Director of Tanat Valley Coaches, said: “To ensure our bus services are delivered efficiently, we needed a complete depot allocation system which streamlined work processes from allocating resources through to performance reporting.
“OmniDAS completely meets our needs, being cloud-based and scalable whilst providing operational control of drivers’ hours, wage payment feeds into SAGE and a reduction of current administrative processes.”
OmniDAS provides transport operators with the capability to deliver services safely and legally whilst minimising costs and providing real-time driver and vehicle management control. Together with data flows to human resources, payroll and operations, the solution will enable Tanat Valley Coaches to optimise resources and reduce administration costs.
Chris added: “As a company operating for 101 years, we wanted to bring the business forward to the 21st century with investment and start to work smarter by digitalising processes and expanding the business. To do this, we needed a partner with industry experience and a proven, scalable solution to support us as we grow the business.
“Omnibus is very knowledgeable about bus operators’ needs and challenges and this know-how is embedded in the software, which is continuously being enhanced and developed to support us to meet changing market demands. We feel confident in choosing Omnibus as a partner for our future development.”
Peter Crichton, Founder of Omnibus, said: “We are thrilled by this new partnership and look forward to supporting Tanat Valley Coaches.
“OmniDAS has been specifically designed with bus operators in mind. The software monitors and enforces drivers’ hours rules and easily manages typical industry practices such as mutual exchanges of work or rest, overtime, enhanced payments, ad hoc duties, and the splitting of work to name just a few. Having multiple pay rules and drivers on differing agreements are also dealt with competently.
“We are delighted that our software solutions continue to make Omnibus the partner of choice for bus operators of all sizes.”
A bus operation is a complex business relying on many moving parts or links in a chain, which need to work in harmony to achieve optimum efficiency.
Key performance indicators measure how well each part is working and drive efficiency across the whole operation. The links fall into three broad categories: planning the network, delivering the service, and performance (operational and engineering) review.
In the videos below we discuss how to measure the performance of each of the components which make up an efficient, profitable and sustainable bus operation.
Planning the network
Duty efficiency is part of the efficiency chain. In the following 4 videos we discuss how timetables and layover, vehicle utilisation, rostering and the allocation of drivers impact the efficiency chain.
Join us at 10-11 October 2022 at New Zealand’s Bus and Coach Association (BCA) Conference 2022 held at the Rotorua Energy Events Centre located in the spectacular Government Gardens.
Visit us on stand 12 and speak to our group Software Director, Nick Brookes and Scheduling Suite Product Manager, Aiden Proctor; and Client Account Manager, Penny Johnson on the latest passenger transport software to increase commercial, financial, and operational performance; from scheduling, to staff rostering, depot allocation and timetabling.
Bus operators need to be able to turn their data into actionable insights so they can achieve that fine balance of providing a bus service which passengers want to use, a place where staff want to work and efficiency levels that maintain profitability.
Data is key in achieving this but data on performance measurements is not enough on its own.
Identifying trends in your data
Bus operators have more data now than ever. Having the ability to analyse this data in one place is vital and unlocks the potential to view different datasets together that have only been considered in isolation previously.
An obvious example is being able to review schedules versus punctuality and feed back into the scheduling and network review process, but further analysis can go much deeper. For example, overlying punctuality with driver sign-on data may reveal that punctuality problems stem from driver lateness for a duty rather than the timetable. The fix, therefore, is very different.
Identifying trends and drilling down into root cause analysis can help operators answer some key operational questions. Is driver fatigue having an impact on accident rates? Could a longer minimum layover provide more loading time on a popular town centre route? Would a smaller vehicle be more efficient in congested areas? This can also help operators ask the big questions. Do our buses fulfil customers’ needs while making a profit?
Typically, a root cause would come down to one of a few classifications: a vehicle issue, timetable issue (schedule), a driver issue or an external factor such as congestion or weather.
Customer complaints is a good starting point for investigating root causes and identifying trends. By analysing complaint data with all other data sources available to an operator, unexpected patterns could be identified. Perhaps there is a correlation of complaints with a certain vehicle, a certain driver or due to certain external conditions. Drilling down further could identify a training or knowledge gap, a failing of a supplier or a lack of correct infrastructure.
Combining datasets to resolve issues
Identifying root cause impacts the way we can resolve problems. We could identify potential improvements to customer satisfaction by changing our training programme or holding more stock of a certain bus part. We can also use data analysis for positive engagement with external stakeholders and local authorities. Particularly where working in Enhanced Partnerships or as part of Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) operators can demonstrate where local authority or third-party investment could provide maximum impact. So, providing a bus shelter in a certain location could resolve the root cause of several problems faced by the operator.
What might surprise operators is that this is simple to do with the right tools. With a solution that can bring multiple datasets together into one place, make sense of them and present the data in simple, easy-to-digest formats, an operator can have insights they never had before. It can identify previously unknown or unseen trends and correlations and help identify root causes of problems and complaints. With quality data from multiple sources, we can quantify and qualify the impacts of decisions by measuring trends over time.
Furthermore, the same data can be used to measure the impacts of changes made. Did changes to the training programme reduce complaints? Did retaining more stock of a certain bus part reduce operation issues, breakdowns and complaints? It is an important outcome of a BSIP to be able to measure the success of actions taken.
How we can help
With over 30 years’ experience in software and consultancy services, Velociti Group has comprehensive knowledge of the bus industry and well-established software that can combine and analyse a wider, richer dataset to bring new insights.
The EPM Insightssolution empowers you with actionable management information on your network performance, supporting you to react to both the changing nature of demand and to help shape your future network.
To book a free consultation to see how we can assist with your challenges and requirements, complete the online form or call 0161 683 3100.
Powering the future of your bus operations
Grow patronage, boost revenue, and drive operational efficiency.
Join us at 5-6 October 2022 at the Australian Bus and Coach Expo 2022 taking place at the Sydney Showground.
Visit us on stand 83 and speak to our group software Director, Nick Brookes and Scheduling Suite Product Manager, Aiden Proctor; and Client Account Manager, Penny Johnson on the latest passenger transport software to increase commercial, financial, and operational performance; from scheduling, to staff rostering, depot allocation and timetabling.
Driver shortages continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing the bus industry today.
Operators are trying to address the problem by bringing new blood into the profession, but it is also critical to retain drivers. After all, prevention is better than the cure.
Mix of duty types
To do this positively, operators should not lose sight of providing a mix of duty types that appeal to different groups of drivers. To keep drivers on board, duties should be kept to two or three pieces of work and split shifts should be avoided at weekends.
Software can help with improving efficiencies and enable network planners to create schedules that do not detrimentally affect another part of the bus operation’s efficiency chain. With tight schedules that are workable, operators are more likely to create driver-friendly duties straight out of the box, rather than having to be manually adjusted.
Improve driver engagement
Improving engagement is also important to retain drivers. Are drivers spoken to only when things go wrong? How easy is it for a driver to raise a concern?
Regular performance reviews are a great way to keep staff informed of their progress and provide a continuous feedback loop where managers are not left wondering if they will have another bout of resignations this week. By using operational data to facilitate these conversations operators can put interventions and strategies in place sooner and more effectively manage their drivers.
Connecting multiple data sources
For any review to be successful, operators will want to see a complete picture of a driver’s performance, including their training records, customer feedback, their telematics Red-Amber-Green (RAG) score for driving behaviour, total time spent driving, lost mileage incidents and punctuality information.
But for many bus operators this data resides in multiple systems. These datasets should be connected into one unified platform to remove the need for data consolidation. The reporting screen should be interactive so operators can drill down into the metrics to interrogate the data and in doing so remove the need for separate analysis to understand the root cause of any issues.
As operators work in time-pressured environments – and with some having 1,000-plus drivers, the output needs to be simple and visual so that it can be easily understood by both reviewing managers and drivers. And for fairness and consistency, this report should be standardised, and the same metrics tracked and managed across all drivers.
By having key metrics on one dashboard operators gain a single source of truth which assures data integrity and provides information in the most efficient way.
Opening communication channels
Another point to consider is how effectively operators communicate with staff to help them manage their home life around varying shift patterns. Operators need to find smarter ways to keep drivers informed. By leveraging technology such as a driver app, they can share useful information quickly which, in turn, connects drivers to the business and helps them feel part of the organisation.
By adjusting duties that may be putting drivers off and proactively using data to improve engagement, operators can better manage their staff which, in turn, will help increase morale and lower labour turnover.
How we can help
With over 30 years’ experience in software and consultancy services, Velociti Group has comprehensive knowledge of the passenger transport industry and well-established software that can integrate multiple data sources into one unified platform to deliver a 360-degree view of your operation.
The EPM Insights solution empowers you with actionable management information on your network performance, supporting you to react to both the changing nature of demand and to help shape your future network.
The OmniDAS solution is a cloud-native depot allocation system for real-time driver and vehicle management. Used worldwide for managing day-to-day resources and handling unexpected changes, it is configured to your unique working practices and ensures services are delivered safe, legally and cost-effectively.
To book a free consultation to see how we can assist with your challenges and requirements, complete the online form or call 0161 683 3100.
Powering the future of your bus operations
Grow patronage, boost revenue, and drive operational efficiency.
Sam Greaves has been in the bus industry for over 25 years. In this video he says a trained scheduler will always give a better result than a non-scheduler when using any scheduling software.
Empowering you with software to drive your business forward
25 April 2022 – Leeds-based Squarepeg Buses has strengthened its partnership with Omnibus to maximise efficiency and reduce costs around crew scheduling.
The independent bus operator has adopted CrewPLAN, a leading automatic crew scheduling software solution, to produce efficient and compliant drivers’ duties. The agreement follows last month’s announcement of the partnership to digitalise scheduling and implement depot allocation and data sharing tools.
CrewPLAN was installed as part of the implementation project for the Omnibus scheduling suite, which includes timetabling, mapping, vehicle scheduling and rostering. All applications are cloud-based to enable Squarepeg Buses to work smarter in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Simon Daymond, Director of Squarepeg Buses, said: “A month into our partnership, and it is clear to me that Omnibus is a trusted partner with the industry expertise and solutions we need to help us adapt effectively to unexpected events and market changes.
“The implementation of CrewPLAN has been critical to our bus operation and couldn’t have come at a better time. All operators have been affected by driver shortages and recently we risked losing an important local authority contract because we were a driver down. By using CrewPLAN we were able to revise drivers’ duties in a more efficient way to incorporate the loss of that one driver and still deliver the contract. So, CrewPLAN has more than paid for itself within the first month.”
Simon added: “I was very impressed at the quick turnaround of the software implementation and the knowledge of Omnibus team members, in particular Technical Account Manager Richard Yeo who delivered the product training.”
Peter Crichton, Founder of Omnibus, said: “We are delighted about this partnership extension which demonstrates the faith Squarepeg Buses has in our software, which is designed specifically for schedulers to support operators of all sizes.
“Linking with our scheduling software and timetabling, CrewPLAN is not only the ideal tool for producing robust and efficient crew duty schedules for current operations but is also essential for evaluating those ‘what if’ questions.”
Established in 2009 and with a peak vehicle requirement (PVR) of 13, Squarepeg Buses provides public, private and school transport services in Leeds and surrounding areas.
Omnibus and EPM parent company Velociti Group aims to empower bus operators’ control room teams with integrated technology.
As the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic recedes, the bus sector is working harder than ever to get people back on the bus.
Software solutions specialist EPM Bus Solutions aims to assist that process with the creation of new products and techniques that can help operators achieve that goal while making them ready for the post-Covid world.
“We work closely with our clients and from those conversations, we know they are really focussed on rebuilding revenue and patronage,” says Nick Brookes, software director at EPM and Omnibus. “That’s a given, obviously, but they are also seeking to enhance their operational effectiveness as well in order to reduce costs and drive profits.”
Article featured in The ALBUM Report 2022 by Passenger Transport
It means Nick and his team at EPM and Omnibus have been looking very closely at developing new tools that aim to improve business efficiency. That process has been broken down into three component parts:
‘Before the day’ network planning;
‘On the day’ control room processes; and
‘After the day’ processes where commercial and operational performance are scrutinised.
“Our solutions play a key role at each of those three stages,” says Nick, adding that EPM and Omnibus have been closely looking at those ‘on the day’ control room elements in order to create new ways of improving efficiency and business productivity.
Part of that process is assisted by the breadth of solutions and products EPM and Omnibus already offer to clients. As Nick notes, they cover the complex chain of processes that run throughout bus businesses and they not only help to drive efficiencies but also lead to a better service for customers. “That really helps operators to deliver an excellent customer experience,” he adds. “That’s absolutely critical at the moment.”
Control room processes
Bus operator control rooms are the hub of the business and the key to ensuring fantastic on the ground service delivery. They cover a myriad of processes such as driver absences, lost mileage or on-the-road issues that can affect punctuality and reliability like traffic congestion or specific issues that require liaison with other departments, like in the case of an accident or vehicle breakdown.
“They are tasked with providing a high-quality service to the customer,” explains Nick. “Those core tasks – making sure the staff are in, the vehicles are on the road and the service is running reliably – are key to that goal.”
But to gain greater insight into how those processes actually work, Nick and his colleagues have spent time in bus operator control rooms to observe them in action. He says it was an enlightening experience.
“One of the things that really stood out was that operators have invested in lots of different solutions in recent years,” he reveals. “There are lots of different systems in there, but we noticed it was all rather disparate – control room staff have to go to lots of different places to gather that information. When they find it, it’s not always in an easy-to-use format either.”
Nick says this means that some of the decisions made as a result of not having a centralised source of information can sometimes have significant cost implications and even detrimental impacts on service delivery. “Without a central hub, control room staff have to move from one system to another and then to another rather than it being presented in a way that facilitates good decision-making,” he adds.
A good example of that is a driver who may have been delayed on the first half of their duty, perhaps as a result of traffic congestion. Nick highlights that control room staff may have to extend their break before they can go back on the road for their second half. It’s a problem that has to be solved immediately, so having visibility of issues in a central hub enables operators to make decisions efficiently and cost effectively.
Solving the problem
“There are lots of different impacts in terms of how that situation can be managed,” says Nick. “If we have all of that information displayed and available, and particularly the key information you really need to know to make effective decisions, that’s not only going to help improve the efficiency and operation of the control room but also the wider business too.”
He says this could be the engineering department or customers services, but the key advantage is that rather than control room staff resorting to time-consuming written reports, ad-hoc emails or phone calls – all parts of the organisation are automatically informed immediately, triggering further automated processes further down that line.
“So you have this single operations platform, that brings together not only information from our group systems, but third-party platforms too. That has the potential to not only create efficiencies but really improve communication across the business while avoiding the potential for errors to creep into the data,” Nick adds. “People don’t have to resort to frantic phone calls or wade through files or emails in order to find the information they need.”
Making the right decision
Of course, bringing together all these data sources also presents the opportunity to do new things with them. In that late running bus example, the driver’s duty may be in one system and the vehicle real time information may be in another, but by bringing those two sources together control room staff can be alerted in advance that there is an emerging issue that needs solving.
“We can facilitate proactive decision-making,” says Nick. “It’s perhaps inevitable that if you have information tucked away in various different systems, sometimes you just can’t see the wood for the trees. By bringing those pieces of information together we can help people to focus on making the right decision while managing the operation as efficiently as possible.”
Integrated solutions
The first phase of Velociti Group’s development is to integrate between their new cloud-based Depot Allocation System, OmniDAS, and the EPM Traffic system to ensure that any staff-related incidents are automatically created. This streamlines the process and improves data integrity.
Powering the future of your bus operations
Grow patronage, boost revenue, and drive operational efficiency.
We use cookies to provide you with a great user experience. By continuing to use our website, you consent to our Cookie Policy. AcceptSee Cookie Policy
“They are tasked with providing a high-quality service to the customer,” explains Nick. “Those core tasks – making sure the staff are in, the vehicles are on the road and the service is running reliably – are key to that goal.”