Havering London Borough Council
Uses modern technology to help manage transport
Allen Burbidge, Haverings Transport Commissioning Manager, has been working
for some time to bring the advantages of current technology into play in helping
manage transport within Havering. Allens responsibilities within the council
cover all areas of transport supplied by the Council, from passenger transport
to street care and emergency fly tipping clean-up service. There are two treads
to the new technology being introduced into the transport department,
operational, planning and audit.
The systems have been provided by KL2, the primary
planning tool is TranSys this provides a number of users around the
Borough with the tools to plan and review, all passenger transport, SEN,
Home-To-School and Older Persons. The system maintains information about
all clients who use the transport, including personal, location(s), risk
assessment. Each client will also have a service order that details the
care plan for this individual detailing the transport services to be
provided.
The TranSys application also has information about all resources that are
available to the transport department, for example vehicle, drivers and
passenger assistants (PA). Clients and all delivery locations are geo-located.
This geo information is used to create the best routes for transporting clients
be that fastest, shortest or least time on bus. One of the advantages of using
TranSys is the availability of consistent information about resource
availability. Managers Borough wide will be able to interrogate availability
information about vehicles, drivers and PAs, at a click of the mouse
Future plans include the operation of more flexible transport provision to
clients over the whole operating day. This will include a number of demand
responsive services.
System auditing information is collected by the installation of GPS tracking
equipment. This equipment records and stores information about the position and
actions, of the vehicles during the day. When the vehicle returns to any of 11
depots around the Borough at the end of the day a radio interface is used to
download this information to a central server where it is available for
reporting, analysis and GIS plotting. This collected information indicates not
only the start, stop and idle times but also information about other activities
being performed by the vehicle. Information about the sweeping brushes, bin
lifter, passenger lift, door openings or refuse collector is also recorded
depending upon the vehicle type. Any of this information may be presented in
either report form or presented on a map.
Allen is confident that the provision of this information direct to managers
desktops will allow more informed decisions to be taken. This should result in
enhanced services to clients, a cost saving on both overtime and taxi or
contract operations.
Within the first few weeks after installation trails have already shown the
potential for savings greater than anticipated