Regional Transit Authorities Transit Operations Centers - 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. | Existing |
| 2 | The center shall provide the capability for a system operator to manage the transit fares and control the exchange of transit fare information. | Existing |
| 3 | The center shall process the financial requests from the transit vehicles or roadside and manage an interface to a Financial Institution. | Existing |
| 4 | The center shall support the payment of transit fare transactions using data provided by the traveler cards / payment instruments. | Existing |
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. | Existing |
| 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 | Existing |
| 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 |
| 10 | The center shall disseminate up-to-date schedules and route information to other centers for fixed and flexible route services. | Existing |
| 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. | Existing |
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. | Existing |
Functional Area: Transit Center Paratransit Operations
Management of demand response transit services, including paratransit. Planning and scheduling of these services. Supports automated vehicle dispatch and automatically updates customer service operator systems.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall process trip requests for demand responsive transit services, i.e. paratransit. Sources of the requests may include traveler information service providers. | Existing |
| 2 | The center shall monitor the operational status of the demand response vehicles including status of passenger pick-up and drop-off. | Existing |
| 3 | The center shall generate demand response transit (including paratransit) routes and schedules based on such factors as parameters input by the system operator, what other demand responsive transit schedules have been planned, the availability and location of vehicles, the relevance of any fixed transit routes and schedules, road network information, and incident information. | Existing |
| 4 | The center shall dispatch demand response (paratransit) transit vehicles. | Existing |
| 6 | The center shall disseminate up-to-date schedules and route information to other centers for demand responsive transit services (paratransit). | Existing |
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. | Existing |
| 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. | Existing |
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. | Existing |
| 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. | Existing |
| 3 | The center shall support the back-office portion of functionality to authenticate transit vehicle operators. | Existing |
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. | Existing |
| 2 | The center shall determine adherence of transit vehicles to their assigned schedule. | Existing |
| 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. | Existing |
| 4 | The center shall provide transit operational data to traveler information service providers. | Existing |
Functional Area: Transit Garage Maintenance
Collect operational and maintenance data from transit vehicles, manage vehicle service histories, automatically generate preventative maintenance schedules, and provide information to service personnel.
| ID | Requirement | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The center shall collect operational and maintenance data from transit vehicles. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall monitor the condition of a transit vehicle to analyze brake, drive train, sensors, fuel, steering, tire, processor, communications equipment, and transit vehicle mileage to identify mileage based maintenance, out-of-specification or imminent failure conditions. | Planned |
| 3 | The center shall generate transit vehicle maintenance schedules that identify the maintenance or repair to be performed and when the work is to be done. | Planned |
| 4 | The center shall generate transit vehicle availability listings, current and forecast, to support transit vehicle assignment planning based, in part, on the transit vehicle maintenance schedule. | Planned |
| 5 | The center shall assign technicians to a transit vehicle maintenance schedule, based upon such factors as personnel eligibility, work assignments, preferences and seniority. | Planned |
| 6 | The center shall verify that the transit vehicle maintenance activities were performed correctly, using the transit vehicle's status, the maintenance personnel's work assignment, and the transit maintenance schedules. | Planned |
| 7 | The center shall generate a time-stamped maintenance log of all maintenance activities performed on a transit vehicle. | Planned |
| 8 | The center shall provide transit operations personnel with the capability to update transit vehicle maintenance information and receive reports on all transit vehicle operations data. | 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. | Planned |
| 2 | The center shall download vehicle assignments to the transit vehicle prior to the start of the day’s operations. | Planned |
| 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 |
| 5 | The center shall generate transit vehicle availability listings, current and forecast, to support transit vehicle assignment planning. | 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. | Existing |
| 3 | The center shall assign transit vehicle operators to transit schedules based on their eligibility, route preferences, seniority, and transit vehicle availability. | Existing |