UNH Fixed Route Dispatch - Transit Management Functionality
Subsystem Description
The Transit Management Subsystem (TRMS) manages transit vehicle fleets and coordinates with other modes and transportation services. It provides operations, maintenance, customer information, planning and management functions for the transit property. It spans distinct central dispatch and garage management systems and supports the spectrum of fixed route, flexible route, paratransit services, transit rail, and bus rapid transit (BRT) service. The subsystem's interfaces allow for communication between transit departments and with other operating entities such as emergency response services and traffic management systems. This subsystem receives special event and real-time incident data from the traffic management subsystem. It provides current transit operations data to other center subsystems. It interfaces with the Emergency Management Subsystem to allow coordinated use of transit vehicles to facilitate response to major emergencies or evacuations. The Transit Management Subsystem collects and stores accurate ridership levels and implements fare structures for use in electronic fare collection. It collects operational and maintenance data from transit vehicles, manages vehicle service histories, and assigns vehicle operators and maintenance personnel to vehicles and routes. The Transit Management Subsystem also provides the capability for automated planning and scheduling of public transit operations. The scheduling capability includes schedule writing, block building and runcutting. The subsystem furnishes travelers with real-time travel information, continuously updated schedules, schedule adherence information, transfer options, and transit routes and fares. In addition, the subsystem supports transit security features. This includes monitoring silent alarms, both passenger and operator initiated, on-board transit vehicles. It also includes the capability to support transit vehicle operator authentication and the capability to remotely disable a transit vehicle. The subsystem includes the capability to monitor for a transit vehicle being off the assigned route. The subsystem also includes the capability to alert operators and police to potential incidents identified by these security features.
Functional Area: Transit Center Fare Management
Management of fare collection at the center - includes setting and distributing fare information, central processing of fares for transit as well as other ITS services, links to financial institutions and enforcement agencies.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall manage the actual value of transit fares for each segment of each regular transit route, including the transmission of the information to transit vehicles and transit stops or stations. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall provide the capability for a system operator to manage the transit fares and control the exchange of transit fare information. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall support the payment of transit fare transactions using data provided by the traveler cards / payment instruments. | Planned |
| 6 | The center shall process requests for transit fares to be paid in advance. | Planned |
| 9 | The center shall maintain a list of invalid traveler credit identities or bad tag lists that can be forwarded to transit vehicles and transit stops or stations. | Planned |
| 10 | The center shall collect fare statistics data to implement variable and flexible fare structures. | Planned |
| 11 | The center shall exchange fare and load information with other transit management centers, including potential Centralized Payments facilities. | Planned |
| 12 | The center shall provide transit fare information to other centers, including traveler information providers upon request. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Center Fixed-Route Operations
Management of fixed route transit operations. Planning, scheduling, and dispatch associated with fixed and flexible route transit services. Updates customer service operator systems, and provides current vehicle schedule adherence and optimum scenarios for schedule adjustment.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall generate transit routes and schedules based on such factors as parameters input by the system operator, road network conditions, incident information, operational data on current routes and schedules, and digitized map data. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall provide the interface to the system operator to control the generation of new routes and schedules (transit services) including the ability to review and update the parameters used by the routes and schedules generation processes and to initiate these processes | Planned |
| 3 | The center shall be able to generate special routes and schedules to support an incident, disaster, evacuation, or other emergency. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall dispatch fixed route or flexible route transit vehicles | Existing |
| 5 | The center shall collect transit operational data for use in the generation of routes and schedules. | Existing |
| 6 | The center shall provide instructions or corrective actions to the transit vehicle operators based upon operational needs. | Existing |
| 7 | The center shall manage large deviations of individual transit vehicles, deviations in rural areas, and deviations of large numbers of vehicles. | Planned |
| 8 | The center shall generate the necessary corrective actions which may involve more than the vehicles concerned and more far reaching action, such as, the introduction of extra vehicles, wide area signal priority by traffic management, the premature termination of some services, etc. | Planned |
| 9 | The center shall exchange information with Maintenance and Construction Operations concerning work zones, roadway conditions, asset restrictions, work plans, etc. | Planned |
| 10 | The center shall disseminate up-to-date schedules and route information to other centers for fixed and flexible route services. | Planned |
| 11 | The center shall provide an interface to the archive data repository to enable the operator to retrieve historical operating data for use in planning transit routes and schedules. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Center Information Services
Provide interactive traveler information to travelers (on-board transit vehicles, at stops/stations, using personal devices), traveler information service providers, media, and other transit organizations. Includes routes, schedules, transfer options, fares, real-time schedule adherence, current incidents, weather conditions, yellow pages, and special events.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall provide travelers using public transportation with traffic and advisory information upon request. Such information may include transit routes, schedules, transfer options, fares, real-time schedule adherence, current incidents, weather conditions, and special events. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall provide transit information to the media including details of deviations from schedule of regular transit services. | Planned |
| 3 | The center shall exchange transit schedules, real-time arrival information, fare schedules, and general transit service information with other transit organizations to support transit traveler information systems. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall provide transit service information to traveler information service providers including routes, schedules, schedule adherence, and fare information as well as transit service information during evacuation. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Center Multi-Modal Coordination
Coordinate schedules with other agencies and modes, including transit transfer cluster and transfer point information.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall coordinate schedules and services between transit agencies, traffic management, maintenance and construction operations, parking management, and other surface or air transportation modes. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall share transfer cluster and transfer point information with multimodal transportation service providers, other transit agencies, and traveler information service providers. A transfer cluster is a collection of stop points, stations, or terminals where transfers can be made conveniently. | Planned |
| 5 | The center shall provide transit operations personnel with the capability to control and monitor transit service coordination activities. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Center Passenger Counting
Receives and processes transit vehicle loading data using two-way communications from equipped transit vehicles.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall collect passenger count information from each transit vehicle. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall calculate transit ridership data by route, route segment, transit stop, time of day, and day of week based on the collected passenger count information. | Planned |
| 3 | The center shall make the compiled ridership data available to the system operator and other applications. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Center Security
Monitor transit vehicle operator or traveler activated alarms; authenticate transit vehicle operators; remotely disable a transit vehicle; alert operators, travelers, and police to potential incidents identified by these security features.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall monitor transit vehicle operational data to determine if the transit vehicle is off-route and assess whether a security incident is occurring. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall receive reports of emergencies on-board transit vehicles entered directly be the transit vehicle operator or from a traveler through interfaces such as panic buttons or alarm switches. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall exchange transit incident information along with other service data with other transit agencies. | Planned |
| 5 | The center shall receive information pertaining to a wide-area alert such as weather alerts, disaster situations, or child abductions. This information may come from Emergency Management or from other Alerting and Advisory Systems. | Planned |
| 7 | The center shall coordinate the response to security incidents involving transit with other agencies including Emergency Management, other transit agencies, media, traffic management, and traveler information service providers. | Planned |
| 8 | The center shall receive threat information and status on the integrity of the transit infrastructure. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Center Signal Priority
Manage transit signal priority, monitoring schedule performance and generating requests for transit priority on routes and at certain intersections.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall analyze transit vehicle schedule performance to determine the need for priority along certain routes or at certain intersections. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall send requests for priority along routes or at intersections to traffic management. | Planned |
| 3 | The center shall define business rules that govern use of transit vehicle signal priority, communicate these rules to the transit vehicle, and monitor transit vehicle requests for priority at signalized intersections. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall provide transit operations personnel with the capability to control and monitor transit signal priority operations. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Center Vehicle Tracking
Monitoring transit vehicle locations via interactions with on-board systems. Furnish users with real-time transit schedule information and maintain interface with digital map providers.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall monitor the locations of all transit vehicles within its network. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall determine adherence of transit vehicles to their assigned schedule. | Planned |
| 3 | The center shall support an interface with a map update provider, or other appropriate data sources, through which updates of digitized map data can be obtained and used as a background for transit tracking and dispatch. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall provide transit operational data to traveler information service providers. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Data Collection
Collection and storage of transit management data. For use by operations personnel or data archives in the region.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall collect transit management data such as transit fares and passenger use, transit services, paratransit operations, transit vehicle maintenance data, etc. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall assign quality control metrics and meta-data to be stored along with the data. Meta-data may include attributes that describe the source and quality of the data and the conditions surrounding the collection of the data. | Planned |
| 3 | The center shall receive and respond to requests from ITS Archives for either a catalog of the transit data or for the data itself. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Evacuation Support
Support evacuation and subsequent reentry of a population in the vicinity of a disaster or other emergency. Coordinate regional evacuation plans and resources including transit and school bus fleets.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall manage the use of transit resources to support evacuation and subsequent reentry of a population in the vicinity of a disaster or other emergency. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall coordinate regional evacuation plans with Emergency Management - identifying the transit role in an evacuation and the transit resources that would be used. | Planned |
| 3 | The center shall coordinate the use of transit and school bus fleets during an evacuation, supporting evacuation of those with special needs and the general population. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall adjust and update transit service and fare schedules and provide that information to other agencies as they coordinate evacuations. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Transportation Operations Data Collection
Collects real-time information on the state of the regional transportation system for operational use by the center. It establishes communications with a regional repository, requests or subscribes to information relevant to the center, and distributes the received information for use.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall collect real-time information on the state of the regional transportation system including current traffic and road conditions, weather conditions, special event and incident information. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Vehicle Assignment
Assigns individual transit vehicles to vehicle blocks and downloads this information to the transit vehicle, updating assignments as necessitated by changes. It also provides an inventory management function that stores attributes about each of the transit vehicles.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall assign individual transit vehicles to transit blocks. | Existing |
| 2 | The center shall download vehicle assignments to the transit vehicle prior to the start of the day’s operations. | Existing |
| 3 | The center shall provide an exception handling process for the vehicle assignment function. This process shall generate new supplemental vehicle assignments as required due to change events which occur during the operating day. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall provide an inventory management function for the transit facility that stores functional attributes about each vehicle owned by the transit operator. The functional attributes permit the planning and assignment functions to match vehicles with routes based on suitability for the types of service required by the particular routes. | Planned |
| 6 | The center shall provide transit operations personnel with the capability to update transit vehicle assignments and receive reports on transit vehicle inventory status. | Planned |
Functional Area: Transit Vehicle Operator Assignment
Assignment of transit operators to runs in a fair manner while minimizing labor and overtime services, considering operator preferences, qualifications, accumulated work hours, and other information about each operator.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall maintain records of a transit vehicle operator's performance. This may be done utilizing standardized performance evaluation criteria set forth by governmental regulations and transit operating company policies, assessing the transit vehicle operator's driving history, and assessing comments from the transit vehicle operator's supervisor(s) as well as noting any moving violations or accidents, supervisor comments, government regulations, and company policies. | Existing |
| 2 | The center shall assess the transit vehicle operator's availability based on previous work assignments, accumulated hours, plus health and vacation commitments. | Planned |
| 3 | The center shall assign transit vehicle operators to transit schedules based on their eligibility, route preferences, seniority, and transit vehicle availability. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall provide an interface through which the transit vehicle operator information can be maintained - either from the transit vehicle operator, center personnel, or other functions. | Planned |
| 5 | The center shall generate supplemental vehicle operator assignments as required due to change events that occur during the operating day. | Planned |