Optibus’ Planning, Scheduling and Rostering products are now being used by the Flint Hills Area Transportation Agency (ATA Bus) to manage its public transportation operation.
ATA Bus plans, manages and operates fixed route and demand response service within Manhattan, Kan., and the surrounding urbanized area, Riley County, Pottawatomie County and Geary County. ATA Bus was seeking a scheduling platform that provided it with key performance indicators (KPIs) and enabled it to create and analyze multiple service scenarios quickly, without requiring schedulers to manually inspect each scenario and guess which scenario is the ideal one.
ATA Bus will use Optibus’ combination of optimization algorithms and artificial intelligence to create blocks and run cuts that combine and optimize both fixed route and demand response services, leading to gains in operational and service efficiency.
Optibus’ Rapid Scenario Creation tool will allow it to produce and analyze multiple scenarios with the click of a button and to make data-driven decisions about which scenario best fits the KPIs. Impact Analysis, part of Optibus’ Geospatial Suite, will enable ATA Bus to analyze how it serves residents who speak English as a second language and to deploy more equitable services.
“...[Optibus’] cloud-native architecture was particularly appealing because it gives us free access to automatic software upgrades and improvements that competitors would charge us for or withhold until they release a new software version,” said Anne Smith, executive director, ATA Bus.
