Nottingham City Transport takes full advantage of INIT’s end-to-end ITS solution

Nottingham City Transport’s (NCT) long history of successful partnership with INIT is set to continue following a £2 million contract for smart ticketing, planning and duty rostering systems.

NCT – one of Nottingham’s largest bus operators, who in 2012 was dubbed for the second time as UK Bus Operator of the Year, already experienced INIT solutions first-hand. Initially, from their participation in the Leicester/East Midlands Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) project, then again in 2009, when NCT implemented INIT’s multi-client Automatic Vehicle Location Control (AVLC) and RTPI systems as a basis for the virtualised Greater Nottingham RTPI.

Intelligent Smart Ticketing

Since the signing of the latest contract at the end of June 2013, 360 of NCT buses are already equipped and are seamlessly using INIT’s latest touch on/off smart card validator PROXmobil2. The ITSO 2.1.4 certified validator fully supports the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme and will soon also handle NCT’s own commercial Easyrider smart card and Nottingham’s ITSO-based Citycard. In addition, PROXmobil2 is EMV Level 1 prepared and is built with the means of implementing 2D barcodes as well as NFC capabilities. This is to ensure future scope of emerging technologies is adoptable with minimum disruption to daily operation.

Within the upcoming year, the project will also see the installation of INIT’s paper ticket printer PRINTmobil. Both PROXmobil2 and PRINTmobil will be controlled by the existing on-board computer COPILOTpc, alongside INIT’s touch screen driver interface TOUCHit which currently forms part of the AVLC and RTPI systems. This integrated solution will allow for simplified on-bus architecture, providing drivers with one single point of control for all ticketing, AVLC/RTPI and voice communication functionality as well as for all on-board peripherals including INIT’s passenger information systems: LED display PIDmobil, multimedia TFT display PIDvisio and audio announcements.

NCT will benefit from INIT’s easy to use ticketing system which has been designed to provide fast transaction times for passengers, cutting dwell times during boarding to better manage schedule adherence and ultimately improve service reliability.

Back office System

Sales data recorded during the day is automatically uploaded via WLAN to INIT’s clearing and ticket management system MOBILEvario.

Operational data which is already being handled by INIT’s multi-client Automatic Vehicle Location Control (AVLC) and RTPI system MOBILE-ITCS and the evaluation tool MOBILEstatistics will soon also be passed to the planning software MOBILE-PLAN to generate further synergic effect such as feeding back real time performance data into the planning cycle. Equipped with various sophisticated optimisation algorithms, MOBILE-PLAN provides fast and automated timetable/duty planning to enable informed decision-making based on best case scenarios, allowing maximisation of vehicle output and cost saving.

INIT’s duty planning and rostering system MOBILE-PERDIS which is currently being provisioned is envisaged to automatically synchronise duties with MOBILE-ITCS for a disturbance management focused not only on vehicles but also on drivers. Using MOBILE-PERDIS’ efficient rostering, NCT can optimise staff productivity and avoid unnecessary unused and over hours whilst the web-based gateway and mobile dispatching features allow for maximum flexibility.

Both MOBILE-PLAN and MOBILE-PERDIS are designed with simplified user handling interfaces to facilitate efficient planning.