Year on year statistics show that usage of MyBus services continues to soar.
There are a variety of factors which contribute to that upward swing in passengers carried, one of which has been SPT’s continued commitment to embrace technology to improve the service offered to customers.
In the last 10 years MyBus can point to several key areas where investment has enabled great strides to be made.
Go back around a decade and callers attempting to book trips with, what was then known as, Dial-a-Bus would have called an 0141 phone number to make their trip request. That was fine if you stayed in the Glasgow
Opening hours for almost all services were much reduced to those in place today with some lines open only in mornings or afternoons as the office closed for lunch.
Nowadays whilst lines continue to have staggered opening times to ease telephone congestion, all lines are open by mid-morning and when open, remain open until close of business.
Back then the operatives processing bookings would plan schedules by using paper, pen and a map and at close of business enter the details on to a spreadsheet and print out copies to be individually faxed to operators.
Fast forward to 2012 and the situation is much different. Investment in the PASS scheduling system at a stroke made scheduling infinitely easier. In seconds the booking system can work out the distance of the journey, timings required to undertake the trip and the impact of journeys already scheduled, giving operators the best possible information of whether a trip request can be accommodated and if so, at what times.
PASS, in conjunction with upgrades to the call handling system have enabled operatives to schedule journeys on multiple service areas at any one time. This has allowed operatives to develop a level of knowledge and expertise across the majority of MyBus services rather than specialising in just one or two, as was the case before.
Since then MyBus has continued to strive to benefit from technological advances. An increasing number of vehicles are fitted with Mobile Data Terminals, similar to the boxes you see fitted in taxis that feed journey information to drivers – and in turn allows drivers to feed back real-time details about where they are in their schedules. This allows customers to be contacted if any late running has developed and gives a more accurate reflection of the running times given to drivers.
Today in addition to the traditional contact centre method of booking, trip requests are accepted by text, email and most recently thanks to further investment, online booking via the web.
Due to launch officially in the next few weeks MyBus web booking has piloted for the last few months and has generated enormous positive feedback from users delighted to have the opportunity to book their journeys at times that may be more convenient to them than the booking line opening hours.
If you haven’t benefited from SPT’s latest investment in technology find out more or register at the MyBus Web Booking Homepage.
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