Planner SOP 002: Planning & Daily Schedule Analysis

Purpose 

The purpose of this SOP is to ensure that the Planning team is monitoring how the digital schedule is used on the road in real time. Consistent review and analysis of data collected by vehicles helps to ensure  on-street performance meets the needs of the community. If this procedure is not followed, it will lead to missing and inaccurate schedule data. It can also cause your agency’s overall on-time performance to decline.   

Operational Impact and Metrics  

Operational Impact: Schedule data is the backbone of the entire system. This process describes the steps that should be taken after a schedule is published or a service change has occurred to ensure all the schedule changes have the desired outcome. This process focuses on ensuring you are collecting 100% of the scheduled service data, comparing the scheduled times to the actual times, and ultimately using this data to improve schedules which will improve on-time performance and provide better service for your riders. 

Metrics: The goal after publishing a new schedule is to ensure it is correct, that vehicle operators service all scheduled stops for their route, and the schedule includes well-balanced drive/ dwell times. Review Schedule Health in BI to identify any missed pieces of work ( missed segments, stops and/ or trips) in the myAvail system, and validate the data across all services levels. Missing data points can be identified by checking:  

1. Block logins – should be 100% across all service levels to ensure you are collecting 100% of the schedule data. 
2. On-time performance (overall) - a comparison of the overall system on-time performance prior to schedule change and after schedule changes were made.  
3. On-time performance (route by route) - an analysis should also be done to compare the routes that have changed pre and post schedule deployment. 
4. Analysis should also include a review of drive and dwell times to, to ensure they are well-balanced,  the schedule is achievable and realistic at the vehicle level.

Definitions  

Frequency

This process should be performed the day following a new schedule deployment and continue until the on-time performance goal has been achieved. Outside of planned schedule deployments this process should also be performed on a monthly basis to ensure accurate schedule data and to continue to improve on-time performance. 

Positions and Responsibilities

Implementation of this procedure is the responsibility of transit agency staff that are involved with  importing, updating, and editing schedules.  

Procedure  

This procedure describes the high-level steps involved in analyzing the daily schedule.  

Data Collection  

1. Review your BI Schedule Health report in Planning which illustrates any missed scheduled service- missed stops, time points to time point segments, and trips 
2. Analyze to ensure all data is collected (100% of blocks) 

Data Validation 

1. Run “OTP” report 
2. Run “Running Times” report 
3. Run “Dwell Times” report 
4. Compare “actual” performance against “planned” performance - arrival time, departure time, dwell time, on-time-performance, and route adherence.  
5. It is also helpful to review myStop outputs, as this is your live schedule as it displays for public consumption

Data Analysis 

1. Identify variances between actual performance and what is scheduled  
2. Determine the cause of performance variation 
3. Define corrective action required  
   • Operator performance 
   • Schedule data issues

Schedule Recommendations and Corrections  

1. Identify schedule corrections required  
2. Identify schedule improvement recommendations 
3. Implement schedule corrections and improvement recommendations (see SP-001) 

Supporting Documents

Related SOPs 

1. SP-001-01 Planning – Schedule Data Management and Implementation 
2. SP-003-01 Planning – Farebox and APC Exceptions and Adjustments 
3. SP-004-01 Planning – Announcement Creation 
4. SP-005-01 Planning – Using the Replay Tool