United KingdomTravel and aviation2022 – ongoingFirstGroup
Automated bus timetabling and vehicle scheduling with Prospective FlowOS
First Bus schedulers now build full timetables in minutes instead of days with an AI scheduling platform
Problem
Building or changing a bus timetable and its vehicle schedule typically took days. Planners needed a way to see travel-time variation and where to add or remove running time.
Approach
First Bus rolled out Prospective's FlowOS platform across its largest UK operating companies, including Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester, the West of England, Essex and West Yorkshire. The two firms had worked together since 2019, and a West Yorkshire pilot improved punctuality and reliability. FlowOS draws on three years of real-time fleet data, and dozens of planners and schedulers use it for about 4,000 vehicles.
Results
Takeaway
The company reported faster planning work and a pilot improvement in punctuality, without percentages.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Travel and aviation
- Business function
- Production and quality
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- OptimizationPredictive analytics and ML
- Adoption
- Vendor solution
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
First Bus announced the rollout of FlowOS after a pilot that began in 2019. The release says schedule changes take minutes rather than days and that the system uses three years of fleet data. It gives no punctuality percentages.
Full details are in the original sources.
