/https://www.optibus.com/how-were-revolutionizing-transit-operations

Timetables are the backbone of any mass transit service. They are the underlying service commitment - when

and where transit should go, where it should stop (or not, for express lines), and where service is measured (time

points to measure punctuality). Generating detailed timetables with service variations (for special days, events,

routes) is one of the more time consuming activities for schedulers. It doesn’t only take time - it has to be right.

Timetable issues can cascade throughout the scheduling process and force schedulers to re-work their

schedules and plans. [Additionally, timetables that aren’t feasible in the real world (i.e. are very likely to miss

planned times) have an adverse e�ect on service quality and e�ciency.

Timetables also need to tie-in seamlessly to scheduling and systems that forecast on-time performance.

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Why timetables?

IntroducingNext Generation Timetables:Automated, Interactive and Continuously Validated

Optibus Scheduling modules are where the muscle of our advanced technology lies.

With timetables we’re addressing the planning phase, we are covering the entire range

of mass transit (and shuttle operation) needs, from schedule development to rostering.

We started focusing on timetables when we saw that getting timetables right could be a huge timesaver for our

users, freeing them to work on strategic issues that would make their mass transit operations better. It was true

that our scheduling software presented real cost savings to our customers, but, for schedulers, working on

timetables was time consuming, taking 75% of schedulers’ time. Even worse, erroneous timetables required

re-doing scheduling work.

When we �rst started working on timetables, we spent a lot of time talking with our customers and researching

their pain points. We wanted to understand what problems they faced with current available tools. Customers

that were using timetable tools had a variety of issues - the tools didn’t integrate with more “downstream” tools,

forcing them to import and export �les. Other issues were simplistic timetables that didn’t re�ect their service

variation complexity, forcing them to perform numerous manual edits. Others were just fatigued by maintaining

all of this on spreadsheets.

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Before we begin, here is what an excel-based timetable looks like:

Before and After

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Here is the same timetable, after it was loaded to Optibus:

But the timetable isn’t just about beauty and an easy-to-use interface. It’s about faster results and, more importantly, valid results.

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Core principles for the timetable moduleHere are the main principles that guided our product thinking

around timetables:

1. Timetables are time consuming,

any software tool should make timetable work e�cient and quick. This means automated timetable

generation & an ability to use historical data too.

2. Building timetables is prone to human errors.

That’s why it’s important to continuously validate the data and make sure it complies with preferences

and any rules or requirements, such as regulations. This is done by pre-de�ning preferences and

constraints, such as minimum and maximum frequencies, terminal capacity constraints and more. The

platform then ensures that the timetable is valid with respect to those requirements.

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3. Understand timetable Key Performance Indicators.In Optibus we always show the business KPIs so that you can see the business impact of the options

you’re forming with the software.

4. Quality planning requires granularity. It’s important to precisely de�ne the intricacies of any mass transit service. Otherwise, the plan isn’t true

to life and scheduling isn’t too. On the scheduling side this means that the ability to de�ne any

preference and rule for optimization is a must. On the planning side it means the ability to de�ne the

exact service. In this case it is the ability to uniquely de�ne a set of dates where service is available, and

to create di�erent timetables for di�erent service days, special days or a complex mixture of days and

times.

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One of the core ideas behind Optibus is to bring a Software-as-a-Service platform to a world that still uses

on-premise software. Apart from this, the main bene�t of automation is quicker generation of timetables. Here

are some of the capabilities in timetables that support this:

Copy paste ability from excel: just paste existing timetables from excel

Powerful manual editing: edit whatever you need, including directions, headways, patterns, distances and

timepoints. You can also build routes from scratch

Create and edit Service IDs and vehicle types

Routes:

Edit timebands

Edit travel times

Auto-generate travel times between bus stops

Copy paste from excel

Travel Times:Add bulk trips with multiple headways

Auto-generate trip times according to travel times

Bulk editing of trips, headways and vehicle types

Keyboard shortcuts for super fast manual editing

Timetables:

Principle

Making timetable work quick (& fun)

With scheduling, Optibus lets you easily model any type of rule, preference, union agreement, or regulation. The

same ability also exists in the new timetable module. The result pinpoints areas where the timetable doesn’t

comply with the pre-set preferences and constraints. As a result, rather than discovering timetable planning

issues during the scheduling process (a painful realization requiring even more painful re-work) these are

automatically highlighted by the system and corrected.

The process is as follows:

Rules and Preferences:You de�ne the rules per Service ID, route, direction and more. For example, the allowed

headway for a pinch point at di�erent time-bands along the day.

Building the timetable:Create the timetable by adding the desired trips to each service ID.

Schedule Validation & Avoiding Errors

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Principle

Automatic Timetable Validation: The system then automatically validates whether the entire timetable complies with the preferences

and regulations that you have de�ned. The Optibus platform pinpoints the parts in the timetable

that aren’t compliant with the preferences or where you have some missing data. This allows for

quick & easy �xes to the timetable and saves a lot of energy later down the road.

Building the vehicle and crew schedules based on the timetable:Having a schedule that is based on a valid timetable can save you a lot of time and energy,

since it saves the re-work of the actual schedule when the timetable is adjusted.

Schedule Validation & Avoiding Errors

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Principle

Another important part of timetables sounds pretty obvious - understand their impact on

operational KPIs. The Optibus platform does this automatically, showing for example the

resulting trip count, by pattern, and by hour. This lets planners immediately see the

impact of the timetable they are creating, and to course-correct in case of mistakes. This

can save time later on, when timetable mistakes are �rst discovered (there will be less

mistakes).

Service IDs are at the core of any timetable operation. While some take the approach of

simplistic Service IDs - Monday through Friday, Saturday and Sunday, in reality most transit

operators use more service IDs to re�ect their responses to demand. For instance,

sometimes we see di�erent service IDs for di�erent holidays, sports events, school events

and more. We need to enable the con�guration of these service IDs in the system, so that

the timetable will have the right granularity and act as an ultra-accurate input to the

scheduling work that is downstream. Otherwise, we will need to do a lot of manual editing.

Service IDs matter

Understand Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

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Principle

Principle

Working on timetables in an automated and interactive way can save a lot of e�ort. The ability to simply express

a timetable - the central transit plan - can save energy, but more importantly, it can save a lot of “downstream”

work since validated timetables provide a robust beginning to the scheduling process instead of something that

requires a lot of back and forth work.

Summary

Optibus helps the world’s leading transit providers better run

mass-transportation through advanced arti�cial intelligence and

optimization algorithms. Optibus provides a SaaS platform that

plans and schedules the movements of every vehicle and driver,

with detailed insight into how this a�ects operations, on-time

performance and costs. Optibus has been chosen for more than

300 cities and drives some of the most complex and large-scale

transit operations worldwide, helping improve quality of service

and e�ciency, reduce costs, streamline operations and reduce

congestion and emissions.

The company has o�ces in San Francisco, London, Tel Aviv, and

Düsseldorf.

About Optibus

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