Benefits of routing software too good to ignore
13 January 2005
The efficiency gains from electronic routing systems are too great for transport operators to ignore according to Laison Irwin, of Christchurch’s leading taxi fleet operator Blue Star Taxis.
Irwin is currently overseeing Blue Star’s introduction of RouteSmart, a new electronic map-based routing software package from New Zealand’s leading geographic information company, Terralink International.
RouteSmart provides Blue Star dispatchers and drivers with printable electronic maps detailed to individual street address level, fastest route planning information and a simple, fast system for fare quotations. The next addition will be a customised system to for estimating customer waiting times. Blue Star is also assessing an in-car GPS system, which will take advantage of RouteSmart's real-time vehicle tracking capabilities.
Even though Blue Star hasn’t yet reached its goal of a fully electronic GPS-based fleet management system, Irwin says the efficiency gains are already huge.
“When a customer calls for an estimate of the fare from A to B, it used to be a 3-4 minute operation involving two employees using a manual distance wheel on a physical map,” he says.
“But using RouteSmart, it’s a simple operation for one call centre rep that takes about 30 seconds. They simply punch in the departure and destination street addresses and the fare estimate is automatically calculated along with the fastest route between the two points. We’re expecting the time it takes to get down to 15-20 seconds once Routesmart is fully integrated into our LAN,” says Irwin.
Blue Star’s development plans include dispatchers using Routesmart to track taxis in real time so they can send the closest car to new jobs as they arise, and using the programme as an in-car navigation aid for drivers.
Irwin says the Blue Star’s decision to chose RouteSmart was strongly influenced by the accuracy of the information at the heart of the system – New Zealand’s most comprehensive road centreline and land information database, Terralink’s Landbase.
Terralink Landbase not only includes highly accurate roading information, it also contains over 1.6 million individual address points, by far the most comprehensive in the country.
Terralink Landbase is also the source of location information for the police, ambulance and fire emergency services – another factor that encouraged Blue Star to chose Terralink’s RouteSmart.
“It’s really important that we know we’re feeding the police information that matches their system precisely if one of our drivers is in trouble,” says Irwin.
Among the other early users of Terralink RouteSmart is Full Circle, a Carter Holt Harvey subsidiary that manages kerbside collection of paper for recycling in Auckland.
Currently Full Circle call centre operators use RouteSmart to answer public enquiries about kerbside collection dates of waste paper.
Telecom Mobile has been using RouteSmart as a planning tool for its retail network. Telecom’s Paula Wright says the ability to graphically plot the location of Telecom’s store network, and their competitors, is invaluable for planning a comprehensive national network of stores.
“Once we’ve plotted our store locations on RouteSmart it’s obvious pretty quickly where the holes are,” she says.
RouteSmart is available from Terralink International. For more information check out terralink.co.nz.
|