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Controlling System Costs: Basic and Advanced Scheduling Manuals and Contemporary Issues in Transit Scheduling (2009)

Chapter: Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Transit Scheduling Manual

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Suggested Citation:"Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Transit Scheduling Manual." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Controlling System Costs: Basic and Advanced Scheduling Manuals and Contemporary Issues in Transit Scheduling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14257.
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Page 6
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Transit Scheduling Manual." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Controlling System Costs: Basic and Advanced Scheduling Manuals and Contemporary Issues in Transit Scheduling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14257.
×
Page 7
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Transit Scheduling Manual." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Controlling System Costs: Basic and Advanced Scheduling Manuals and Contemporary Issues in Transit Scheduling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14257.
×
Page 8
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Transit Scheduling Manual." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Controlling System Costs: Basic and Advanced Scheduling Manuals and Contemporary Issues in Transit Scheduling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14257.
×
Page 9
Suggested Citation:"Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Transit Scheduling Manual." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2009. Controlling System Costs: Basic and Advanced Scheduling Manuals and Contemporary Issues in Transit Scheduling. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14257.
×
Page 10

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

Chapter 1. Introduction to the Transit Scheduling Manual

Introduction to the Transit Scheduling Manual Scheduling is both an art and a science, combining the best of creativity with pragmatism, elegance with mathematical precision. We have a passion for scheduling! Why? Well, there are many reasons, but ultimately schedul- ing combines the best of creativity with pragmatism, elegance with mathematical precision. In a way, it is like a giant puzzle that looks indecipherable to the casual observer. Fans of Sudoku puzzles will understand this analogy. There is nothing more satisfying than to complete a schedule that is both effi cient and provides the best possible service to the riding public at the service level required. You will hear a lot about this “maximize/minimize” philosophy as we get into the heart of the subject, for it is the essence of being a good scheduler. Any type of training manual runs the risk of being tedious to read, clinical and informative but bland. We hope to infuse this with a bit of humor and also reveal a little bit of the passion on the way to helping the reader become one of the best schedulers. Why is scheduling important? This question can be answered at several diff erent levels. To customers, a schedule provides the essential information needed to plan a trip, defi nes the arrival and departure times and the time the trip will take, makes suffi cient capacity of service available so that the customers’ trip will be comfortable, and ensures that customers will arrive at their destination at the promised time. Senior manage- ment at one of the case study agencies noted that if you want to pay attention to cus- tomer service, then you have to pay attention to scheduling. To operators, scheduling defi nes the workday. Operators are the front line in terms of dealing with customers, and the interaction can be aff ected by running and layover times. Operators also tend to favor full-time runs and straight runs (as opposed to split shifts). Good schedules can reduce the stress inherent in this job, thus improving morale and minimizing absenteeism. To transit agencies, scheduling puts reliable service on the street where it will be most utilized. In addition, scheduling provides data and information to support other sec- tions such as Marketing, Planning, Operations, Administration, and many downstream systems like AVL, APCs, voice annunciators, trip planners, and real time information systems. To general managers and chief fi nancial offi cers, scheduling has major impacts on the quality and cost of operations. The extent of these impacts is sometimes not fully understood within the agency. Scheduling is the brain of the transit organism in its day- to-day functioning. By its nature, scheduling has the clearest understanding of how and • • • • schedule A document showing trip times at time points along a route. The schedule may also include ad- ditional information such as route descriptions, deadhead times, interline information, run numbers, and block numbers. layover time The time between the scheduled arrival and departure of a vehicle at a transit terminal. Often used in- terchangeably with “recovery time,” although technically layover time is rest time for the operator between trips while recovery time is time built into the schedule to ensure an on-time departure for the next trip. In this manual, layover and recov- ery are calculated together and the total time between trips is referred to as layover. run A work assignment for an operator. Most often, run refers to a whole day’s work assignment. Chapter 1. Introduction 1-3

Chapter 1. Introduction 1-4 where cost effi ciencies can be achieved in daily operations and of the impacts of specifi c provisions of the collective bargaining agreement on effi ciency. A savvy general man- ager makes full utilization of the scheduling department’s knowledge in these areas, particularly in times of budget constraints. What makes a good schedule? Reliability, service frequency that matches demand or agency policies, operating speeds as high as possible consistent with safety, and minimization of op- erating and capital costs are all important and at times contradictory goals. There are both art and science required in achieving these goals, beyond the requirement that the scheduler be capable of and comfortable with dealing with increasing reams of data. This manual explores both the science as well as the art of scheduling. Today’s scheduler has more tools at his or her disposal to take a lot of the drudgery out of the process. But he or she also faces more challenges. Deadlines are often much shorter as a result of what can be, at times, a politically driven service implementation process. There are now ever more downstream customers for scheduling material. At one time, a schedule department was also a print shop, but much of the fi nished schedule information is now needed in elec- tronic form. This means that scheduling purely by hand is no longer practical, even for small transit properties, where keeping on-board electronic gadgets such as next stop annunciators up to date can take longer than the regular scheduling process. And yet, today’s highly effi cient computerized scheduling software packages, while supplying all these downstream requirements quickly and accurately, tend to mask the whole scheduling process, especially for beginners. The practice of scheduling is becoming a case of learning another computer program and manipulating the program to get results within the guidelines of the parameters programmed into it. The whole theory of the underlying practice has been lost to many of today’s schedulers. This manual is intended for use by those interested in learning more about the scheduling process, whether you schedule manuallyͭ or via computerized scheduling software packages. The manual will be especially useful for the latter group, by introducing the craft of scheduling to schedulers who may view the software as a “black box.” From our observations, many schedulers receive the training they need to operate the specifi c software packages but very little in terms of the scheduling craft. The outcome is that sched- ules are being produced that are technically effi cient in that they meet the parameters defi ned 1 An assumption throughout this manual is that scheduling “by hand,” using pen and paper, no longer exists. “Scheduling manually” in this context is therefore defi ned as scheduling undertaken not using proprietary computerized scheduling systems but using basic tools such as spreadsheets, word processors, and database programs. frequency The number of vehicles passing a point on a route within a given unit of time, usually expressed as X vehicles per hour. See also “headway.” Headway is the inverse of frequency: a frequency of six buses per hour is equivalent of a headway of 1/6 hour or 10 minutes. An automated scheduling package can produce the “science”—creating an accurate and conforming schedule, but no automated package will ever replace the artistry of a well-constructed schedule created by an enlightened and practiced scheduler. Tip

Chapter 1. Introduction 1-5 within the software but not as competent or even as practical as they could be if developed with a thorough knowledge of the craft of scheduling. We take the view that a computer and scheduling package should be thought of as a tool…a very useful and powerful tool, but one that must be applied with the seasoned knowledge of a scheduling professional. As a colleague once put it: “You give a person MS Word and don’t expect them to write the great American novel—so don’t give them a computerized scheduling package and expect that they can produce high quality schedules!” A good schedule provides the right level of service at the minimum cost. A good schedule is the key to an effi cient and sustainable transit operation. The goal of this manual is to provide the reader with all of the skills necessary to be a profes- sional scheduler, lacking only the years of practice needed to develop and apply the seasoning. We pledge to try and make the reading interesting and informative along the way. Even if you have no intention of becoming a scheduler, we still welcome you to this manual as a way to gain a greater understanding of what the scheduling process entails and how it can aff ect your agency’s bottom line. This manual is designed to focus on bus scheduling. Rail schedulers will still fi nd sections with information specifi c to their particular mode. However rail scheduling (particularly timetabling) has many unique aspects that are beyond the scope of this project. One last note before we begin: we certainly do not want this manual to be any more mystifying than it needs to be. A constant issue the industry faces is non-schedulers’ reluctance to deal with scheduling issues, due to its reputation as a diffi cult, unfathomable subject. Scheduling, like all other specialized practices, has a language of its own, with specifi c terms that may not be familiar to newcomers or even transit employees who are not involved with scheduling. Even worse, these terms are not universal: individual transit systems have their own “dialect” or unique names for things. For example, once the schedulers have completed their tasks, work assignments are posted for operators to select. This is called a pick, line-up, shake-up, bid, sign-up, or mark-up, depending on the agency. As much as possible, we use the most widely used term in the discussions that follow. The margins contain a running glossary, defi ning a term the fi rst time it is used. The reader can also refer to the Glossary, where every term we and others have been able to collect over the past two decades is defi ned.

Chapter 1. Introduction 1-6 Chapter ͮ discusses inputs to the scheduling process. Subsequent chapters address the indi- vidual elements of scheduling: Chapter ͯ: Schedule Building Chapter Ͱ: Schedule Blocking Chapter ͱ: Runcutting Chapter Ͳ: Rostering Chapter ͳ: Rail Scheduling The chapters have basic, intermediate, and advanced levels. At the end of each section, you will have the choice to continue along in the same section of the following chapter or to move on to a higher level within the topic. • • • • •

Next: Chapter 2 - Inputs to the Scheduling Process »
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TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 135: Controlling System Costs: Basic and Advanced Scheduling Manuals and Contemporary Issues in Transit Scheduling explores information on available scheduling tools and techniques and their capabilities. Also, the report provides guidance to transit agencies on a variety of scheduling issues typically faced in a transit operating environment.

TCRP Report 135 is an update to TCRP Report 30: Transit Scheduling: Basic and Advanced Manuals and addresses contemporary issues in transit scheduling. The appendixes to TCRP Report 135 were published as TCRP Web-Only Document 45: Appendixes to TCRP Report 135: Controlling System Costs: Basic and Advanced Scheduling Manuals and Contemporary Issues in Transit Scheduling.

An interactive scheduling manual is available as an ISO image. Links to the ISO image and instructions for burning a CD-ROM from an ISO image are provided below. Once a CD-ROM has been made with the ISO image, open the folder on the CD-ROM called Interactive Scheduling Manual and click on Transit_Scheduling_Lessons.pps.

Help on Burning an .ISO CD-ROM Image

Download the .ISO CD-ROM Image

(Warning: This is a large and may take some time to download using a high-speed connection.)

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