Optibus announced the launch of Timetable Optimization, which allows customers to minimize costs and peak vehicle requirements (PVR) for operating services while improving timetables and maintaining service quality. 

The launch follows successful beta trials with Arriva Portugal and Chartered Speed in India, among others. In initial trials of Timetable Optimization, customers saw an additional 5% reduction in required vehicle count, deadheads, and operational expenses.  

“Timetable Optimization from Optibus allowed TST, an Arriva Group company, to decrease the work time on timetables by delivering a more efficient solution, not only increasing the operational efficiency but also the planning productivity,“ said Duarte Cunha of the planning department of TST, an Arriva Group Company.

Optibus’ optimization algorithms improve the efficiency of the timetable and apply changes to both trip directions, saving time by eliminating the labor and guesswork involved in manually offsetting trips.

Optibus’ dashboard visualizes changes that occurred through optimization, including stop times, number of trips modified in each direction (e.g. 4 Northbound, 8 Southbound), and the impact on business metrics including blocks (PVR), vehicle efficiency (%), and total cost.

Timetable Optimization is a solution that calculates costs while accounting for daily fixed costs (for both drivers and vehicles), drivers’ hourly wages, distance unit cost per vehicle, and custom preferences regarding layovers, route connections (e.g. interlining), and the deadhead catalog.

“The quality of a transport system can be measured by the quality of the software used to build and operate it. Timetable Optimization is one more Optibus capability that replaces inefficient, legacy processes with a powerful digital platform backed by optimization algorithms and cloud computing. Planners can now predict better than ever the impact of their timetables, leading to a new level of service quality, cost savings, and work efficiency,” said Amos Haggiag, CEO/co-founder, Optibus. 

The feature is included within Optibus’ Planning module, which streamlines planning by housing all functions on a single, end-to-end platform. Other solutions separate planning processes and data into different silos.