Technology is the basis for a good planner. Especially when one is responsible for scheduling thousands of children who have to go to school every day or travelers who have to be taken to various day activities following school transport. In itself one would say that once planned this process can be repeated every day, but this is by no means the case. The technology company Pitane BV is responsible for managing many tens of thousands of journey orders per day and is constantly working on tools for planners. Not only by integrating smart route planners, but also by visually mapping out all transport flows.
street knowledge
The biggest problem when planning routes is often the street knowledge of the employees. Something had to be found. The time when we sort all journeys in an Excel file by zip codes is long gone. By the way, that system certainly doesn't work in a wetland area where bridges are scarce. Pitane Visual Planning was previously realized for target group transport, but was given a successor at the beginning of March. The main reason was to replace the map material so that people were not only dependent on Google Maps. The new software allows use of Google Maps, Microsoft Bing Maps, Microsoft Azure Maps, OpenStreetMaps, TomTom, Here Maps and MapBox. In this way, every user can see the presentation on the map material with which he has the best experience.
"A first for the taxi sector. Especially those who are responsible for making combinations of trips to schools, daytime activities or coordinating demand-dependent transport for a municipality or region see a big gain."
Planning visual group transport is a challenge. The first thing the system does is map all transport flows per day part, locations or work area. Once that has been mapped out, clustering rides into routes is more of a game than science. Each cluster is automatically monitored for numbers, wheelchair use and typical transport characteristics such as sitting in the front of the bus.
create routes
All clusters are processed to routes that are automatically in the group transport package be included. Once included in a route, the traveler disappears from the map for that part of the day, so that double scheduling in different routes is a thing of the past. The underlying route generator automatically rearranges all travelers in the most optimal travel movements, but manual intervention and rearranging entry and exit positions can still be done manually.
cut costs
Perhaps the most important, in addition to the new functionalities of the software, is that the use can reduce the costs for licenses of map material enormously. In addition to the large and often much too expensive players in the market, Open Street Maps (OSM) can now also be used as a good alternative. Young employees must be able to create quality routes without too much knowledge of the work area.
Also read: Pitane Mobility is fully committed to mobile taxi software