Challenges
Blacksburg Transit in Blacksburg, VA, makes 2.9 million trips each year with a passenger base largely made up of the students and staff of Virginia Tech University. Blacksburg Transit was looking for an electronic dispatching system with Computer Aided Dispatch/Automatic Vehicle Location (CAD/AVL) capabilities from an experienced vendor. They wanted to reduce paperwork, track vehicles, get a clearer picture of ridership, communicate wirelessly with drivers, and quickly respond to schedule adherence issues.

Solution
To achieve this, Blacksburg Transit chose Mentor Streets® Transit, a fully integrated intelligent transportation system (ITS) solution that includes software applications for CAD/AVL, event management, and schedule and route adherence. Installed in the vehicles is Mentor Ranger®, a rugged in-vehicle mobile computer and GPS/telematic data collection device that facilitates fast, secure communication between drivers and dispatchers. Finally, XGate ® middleware acts as the interface between the in-vehicle devices, the wireless network, and the office software.

Results
Mentor Streets transit software gives dispatchers at Blacksburg Transit the ability to see buses in real time, helping them deal with customer calls more effectively. According to Aneil Samuel, the ITS Administrator at Blacksburg Transit, "With the dispatch application, we could see where the buses were, and if we ever got a phone call asking 'Where's my bus?' we could answer that question right away without using the radio."

Sending all their passenger information over the wireless network to Streets virtually eliminates the hassle of paperwork. Tim Witten, Special Projects Manager at Blacksburg Transit, explains: "For some routes, drivers were filling out two legal-sized pieces of paper on both sides for just three hours of driving. Streets summarized all the boarding and alighting data for all the stops." Tim knows that the system is working and the staff like what they see. The transition to Mentor's ITS solution has helped to improve operational efficiencies and eliminate the hassle of paperwork. As to drivers' acceptance of their new Ranger computers: "They just don't want to run without them," says Tim.

"EVERYBODY IS FACING TIGHTER BUDGETS, SO PART OF WHAT WE NEEDED FROM A CAD/AVL SYSTEM WAS BETTER DATA COLLECTION. THIS ALLOWS US TO DETERMINE WHERE THE BUSES SHOULD BE, WHERE THE BUSES SHOULD RUN, AND HOW TO GET THE BEST PRODUCTIVITY FROM OUR BUSES. FOR ME, IT'S ALL ABOUT GETTING GOOD DATA."

- Tim Witten, Special Projects Manager, Blacksburg Transit

ROI

More Efficient use of Driver/Dispatcher Time Improved Response Time and Accurate Answers to Customer Questions Reduced Paperwork Better Sense of Ride Volumes Improved Information Management