The Flint Hills Area Transportation Agency (ATA Bus) is now using Optibus’ planning, scheduling, and rostering products to manage its public transportation operation, according to Optibus' news release.

ATA Bus plans, manages, and operates fixed route and demand response service within Manhattan, Kansas, and the surrounding urbanized area, Riley County, Pottawatomie County, and Geary County. The agency said it was seeking a scheduling platform that provided them with key performance indicators (KPIs) and enabled them to create and analyze multiple service scenarios quickly, without requiring schedulers to manually inspect each scenario and guess which scenario is the ideal one. 

ATA Bus also said it will use Optibus’ combination of optimization algorithms and artificial intelligence to create blocks and run cuts that combine and optimize both fixed route and demand response services. Optibus’ Rapid Scenario Creation tool will allow them to produce and analyze multiple scenarios and to make data-driven decisions about which scenario best fits their KPIs, according to Optibus. Impact Analysis, part of Optibus’ Geospatial Suite, will enable ATA Bus to analyze how they serve residents who speak English as a second language and to deploy more equitable services. 

“Optibus is technologically superior to the competition, especially with regard to their speed and all the KPIs they present once optimizations are complete. Their cloud-native architecture was particularly appealing because it gives us free access to automatic software upgrades and improvements that competitors would charge us for or withhold until they release a new software version,” said Anne Smith, executive director at ATA Bus.