Keep your customers informed in every situation! Emma Fernlöf of Hogia is one of the speakers at IT-TRANS, a public transport conference in Karlsruhe in early March. She will talk about the public transport of the future and how smart information can be used proactively in traffic management to prevent disruptions in public transport from affecting the passenger, creating a smoother journey and making public transport more attractive. The next generation of public transport is proactive, says Emma, and explains what this means in practice.
Today transport companies often use several different systems to collect traffic data regarding public transport disruptions. There may be automatic incoming messages from the Swedish Transport Administration or reports from the company’s own operations regarding obstacles and diversions affecting traffic. Part of the solution is to collect and combine all the data in one place in a central system. When combined, data from different sources creates an overall picture of the situation and makes it possible to identify the traffic affected and to provide both passengers and drivers with better information on measures taken.
Situation management
Situation management offers interesting opportunities for proactive measures. A situation is something that can affect the public transport plan, such as roadworks, an accident, etc. Traffic controllers may receive automatic incoming messages from the National Transport Administration or reports from their own operations regarding obstacles and diversions affecting traffic. By combining a situation with public transport information, it is possible to analyse how it will affect a planned route, timetable and stops. The traffic controller will receive information that the situation, such as an accident, will affect line 1, which means that traffic will need to be diverted to minimize the impact on the passenger. Situation management offers interesting opportunities for proactive measures.
High-resolution data
Data with high quality provides the digital support needed to understand how planned traffic needs to be adjusted to limit the impact on public transport. High-resolution data is required to describe the impact with sufficient accuracy, to ensure the measures taken are effective. By collecting data regarding a situation, AI can be used as decision support. For example, if a notification from the National Transport Administration is received regarding a situation such as an accident, information about how you acted last time this happened will be available, with a suggestion to automatically repeat the same action.
Faster decisions
An important part of situation management is to give everyone in the organization an overview of the situation so that they understand the situation and can take appropriate action quickly. Everyone who uses the central system has access to the same information at the same time, which simplifies communication both within their own operations and between different public transport operators. When everyone has the same overall picture of the situation, decisions can be made faster on appropriate action to reduce the impact of public transport disruptions.
Faster dissemination of information
With a structured approach and the possibility of rapid dissemination of information, we enable operators to behave proactively. Proactive behaviour is a feature of the next generation of public transport and makes public transport, which is an important part of the smart society, more attractive.
Emma Fernlöf, Hogia
