North Carolina Rural Transit Agencies
Paratransit ITS Revolutionizes Rural Transit
Challenges
In 2005, Duplin County Transportation in Kenansville, NC, needed a solution to help them addresses their remote locations, increasing ridership, and tight budgets. They decided to implement Transit ITS technology to help meet these challenges and increase the overall efficiency of their agency.
Following a new trend in technology procurement, Duplin County approached fifteen other agencies to sign an inter-local agreement. Signing this agreement would allow agencies to purchase technology from the Duplin County contract without having to send out their own Request for Proposals (RFPs). Additionally, the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) agreed to supply funding to qualifying agencies purchasing through this agreement. Currently, eight agencies have implemented ITS Solutions purchased from the inter-local agreement.
Solution
Duplin County selected a Paratransit ITS Solution from Mentor Engineering and RouteMatch Software. Installed in the vehicles is Mentor Ranger®, a tough, compact computer that connects the vehicle and the office. Drivers log in, get trip information, and enter job details into Ranger. This time-stamped information is automatically sent to RouteMatch software at the office. Also in the office, Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) lets dispatchers track the location of all vehicles in real-time which allows for on-the-fly schedule changes and closest vehicle routing. Real-time text messaging helps dispatchers and drivers communicate efficiently, while Ranger provides on-screen, turn-by-turn navigation to ensure drivers arrive on-time at the correct destination.
Results
Since the systems' implementation, two-way, real-time text messaging and electronic manifests have drastically improved communications for this group of North Carolina agencies. As Herb Mullen, Director at Inter-County Public Transit Authority says: "Communication in this business is everything. If we ever get even a minor breakdown in communication everything goes to pieces. The improved communication has been the greatest benefit of this system. Dispatchers now send trips and messages directly to Ranger and the drivers acknowledge with a push of a button that they received them. It's a real time-saver and a real frustration killer. You don't wonder if the driver got the message, you know he got it."
Also, improved communication and scheduling has had a direct impact on the on-time performance of the participating agencies. Wake Coordinated Transportation Services includes a requirement of 92% on-time performance in its service provider contracts. Since the implementation of the Mentor system, Wake has seen great improvements in their contractor's on-time performance. "Since we went live with the full implementation we've seen a significant increase. On-time performance has gone up 2 to 4 points per month," says Ray Woodall, Transportation Broker for Wake Coordinated Transportation Services.
For managers, reporting has become significantly more efficient. Ray says, "I used to have to go back at least seven to ten days to pull up verified data. Now, I can go in and verified data is available for me to view from the previous day's trips. We've been able to have the clerk who was doing verification assume other duties because the process has become so simplified for her."
Using less paper is an additional benefit to electronic manifests and data entry. Rob Brink, Director at Kerr Area Rural Transportation Services says, "We probably use 25% of the paper we were using prior to the system. Before we were running a detailed manifest for all the drivers which were about 10-20 page documents. We've reduced that to trip summaries which are only 1 to 2 pages."
|
It's really night and day as far as how much the communication process has improved. There are things that would have taken ten minutes to do before we had the system that can now be done instantaneously. 
Demos
Webinars
Data Sheets
White Papers