Optimisation as a driver of efficiency
Planning vehicle schedules and duties is a demanding task. The ability to deploy all resources properly and as effectively as possible poses a real challenge. But the potential here is significant: Making vehicle and duty schedules even just a few percent more efficient can save bus operators and railway companies a lot of money – for trains and (electric) buses alike.
To achieve this, IVU relies on the optimisation algorithms of its fully owned subsidiary LBW Optimization GmbH. LBW, a branch of the renowned Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB), specialises in the development of new mathematical optimisation methods and develops the world's leading optimisation algorithms in the transport sector.
This allows you to generate duty and vehicle working schedules that meet all legal and operational requirements in next to no time. This frees up resources that can be utilised to, for example, provide additional services. Duty scheduling is also more balanced and employees are happier. Optimisations allow dispatch managers to instantly respond to disruptions or engineering works and adapt duty and vehicle schedules in a matter of seconds with only minimal changes.
Maximum efficiency
Duty and Vehicle Working Optimisation
For maximum efficiency, the planning products of the IVU.suite enable you to coordinate duties and vehicle workings. To do this, the vehicle working optimisation always finds an adequate and cost-minimising solution for the set of trips to be scheduled. The high-performance optimisation core thus automatically creates vehicle workings according to individual requests and thereby minimises the number of vehicles needed.
Subsequently, the duty schedule optimisation ensures that all vehicle workings and arising activities are optimally covered. Thanks to high-performance optimisation algorithms, it can combine thousands of duty elements, crewing guidelines, and qualifications into an optimal duty schedule within a few minutes. With the help of variants and adjustments, the planners can also quickly react to sudden modifications, leaving duty schedules broadly unchanged.
In regional transport in particular, the creation of vehicle working schedules and duty schedules must be carried out simultaneously. With the integrated duty and vehicle working optimisation, transport companies can reach the best possible results even in this environment. The system starts with a timetable and then creates a comprehensive, optimised, coordinated vehicle working schedule and duty schedule. The division of vehicle workings and duties among the vehicle and personnel depots can be specified in advance – even for the division of parts of the timetable among subcontractors.
Automatic Personnel Dispatch (APD)
With the APD, IVU.suite optimises personnel allocation. The system sets duty sequences and allocates these to the corresponding employees. Depending on the operational requirements, it pays attention to fair allocations or balanced working times, for example. Furthermore, the APD automatically takes qualifications, holidays, trainings, and requests into account – and thereby increases the flexibility of the driving personnel.
Besides everyday operations, the optimisation also supports economic decisions, such as whether to apply for a tender. It can be used to calculate scenarios for routes that have not yet been acquired and as a basis for an efficient offer, in order to be one carriage length ahead of the competition, as it were.
Overview of Our Solution
The vehicle working optimisation automatically takes scheduled maintenance tasks and charging times into account and constantly finds an adequate and cost-minimising solution.
The duty schedule optimisation covers all vehicle workings and arising activities optimally and pays attention e.g., to guidelines from the Working Hours Act or qualifications of the driving personnel.
The APD sets duty sequences and allocates these to the corresponding employees. Depending on the operational requirements, it pays attention to fair allocations or balanced working time accounts, for example.
Using the optimisation, scenarios for future routes in transport tenders can be calculated and used as the basis for an efficient offer.
Leading algorithms support the quick creation of duty and vehicle working schedules and rosters that meet all legal and operational requirements.
Selected references
Information and Analytics
AI-ready with smart data
Optimising operational processes and increasing efficiency while simultaneously improving customer service can often pose difficulties for transport operators. To tackle these challenges sustainably, well-founded data analyses and ongoing optimisation are absolutely essential.
Thanks to IVU.data, there is now a tool that enables and simplifies historicised data analyses. Our data warehouse solution, IVU.data, collects, curates and centralises operational data from the IVU.suite as well as other applications. By aggregating integrated, technically complex data, IVU.data enables comprehensive business analyses to be carried out using algorithms – including those where artificial intelligence (AI) is used.
Now IVU.data is part of the IVU.suite, our customers are sufficiently equipped to continuously optimise their operational processes. From now on, automated forecasts and optimisation proposals for scheduling, dispatch and the control centre can be created with ease. From optimal charging of electric buses, to optimising timetables during rush hour, to improving traffic signal control – these areas all hold great potential for data analysis and artificial intelligence (AI). With IVU.data, you have the right tool at your fingertips so that you are well prepared for any eventuality.
Feel free to contact us
We look forward to hearing from you
Do you want to talk with a customer advisor or learn more about career opportunities with us? Or maybe there is something else you want to talk to us about? Write to us – your contact person will get back in touch with you as quickly as possible.
IVU Traffic Technologies AG
Headquarters
Bundesallee 88
12161 Berlin, Germany
Phone: +49.30.8 59 06 -0
E-mail: contact@ivu.com
Stay informed – get the latest news about our projects, customers and products directly into your inbox.