First Bus has signed an agreement with Prospective.io to deploy the supplier’s automated scheduling platform across five of its regional operating companies.
The artificial intelligence-based product will deliver automated, data driven timetabling and scheduling in Bristol and the West of England, Essex, Glasgow, Manchester and West Yorkshire. It will allow local scheduling teams to make what First describes as “subtle changes to schedules throughout the year to maintain service quality.”
Using FlowOS, First Bus can leverage three years’ real time operational data on passenger and vehicle flows. That enables it to identify how travel duration fluctuates by time, day and season, and how to accommodate that; how passengers ‘flow through’ services; and when and where to add or remove time to or from schedules while retaining punctuality.
As a result, the operator’s schedulers can create or adjust full timetables and vehicle schedules “in minutes,” and not the typically much longer period. “This empowers local teams to make more frequent, subtler changes to services that ensure that timetables will remain accurate throughout the year,” the group comments.
First Bus Chief Commercial Officer Simon Pearson (pictured, left) says that combining the Prospective platform with recent investment in Optibus software “means that our scheduling team can now deliver speed, accuracy and flexibility across the full spectrum of network planning decision making.”
Mr Pearson adds that deployment of FlowOS will additionally unlock more time for local teams “to explore service design improvements using the best available data.”
Prospective CEO Pete Ferguson (pictured, right) has acknowledged First Bus’s collaboration with the supplier in development of the AI software for the UK. “We are grateful for its support, creativity and commitment to improving public transport across the UK and we are proud of our strengthening partnership with the company,” adds Mr Ferguson.
