Planner SOP 003: Farebox & APC Exceptions & Adjustments

Purpose 

This procedure provides information for Planners for how to use the Exceptions and System Adjustments functions. Before processing exceptions, ridership and APC data is held in a “holding tank”, until the data can be validated for accuracy.

Operational Impact and Metrics

Operational Impact: Processing exceptions and system adjustments are very important to maintaining quality, well-defined, reporting data.

Exceptions processing allows the user to correct and realign any schedule related problems with the data before it is made available to the rest of the agency for reporting purposes. If the user does not correct the flagged issues it will result in an ‘undefined’ category showing up in the reporting data.

After the data is released from the exceptions processing, agency staff must enter known NTD 
adjustments to account for added or reduced service. Failing to do so will result in inaccurate NTD reporting data ( miles and hours). 

Metrics: In the ‘Exceptions’ screen of Avail's ETMS, select the ‘Probe Date’ from the drop down menu to see the number of dates that are awaiting processing.

Definitions

Frequency

Exceptions and adjustments should be processed each day.

If all exceptions are not processed for all dates prior to a schedule change, the system will be comparing data from the previous schedule to the new schedule and the two will not match. This will cause the system to flag ‘exceptions’ that may not really be issues because you are comparing data collected from schedule A to your new schedule B. This can cause some records to be defined on the reporting end as ‘undefined’ when it comes to Route, Block and Trip. Please ensure your agency has all exception dates completed prior to a schedule a publish.

Positions and Responsibilities

Implementation of this procedure is the responsibility of transit agency staff that are involved with 
transit scheduling and data reporting.

Procedure

This procedure describes the high-level steps involved in identifying and adjusting APC exceptions and then accounting for system adjustments. 

Exceptions Processing

1. Login to ETMS, navigate to Planning & Scheduling> Exceptions Processing card  

1. Or use the Search filed to locate 'exceptions'

2. Select the next available 'Probe Date' - all validation tests are automatically run for the selected probe date 

3. Select a validation test (Column) to review, then correct (anything with a red number requires correction). Make corrections where required:

• Correct Vehicle Id 

• Correct Operator Id 

• Correct Route/Run/Trip 

• Correct Fareset Id 

• Correct Run Id 

• Correct Route Fareset 

• Correct Fare Type

4. Correct all data as needed, then 'Save' (Refer to the system generated Suggestions, Record Context and Record Information tabs for reference)

5. Select “Move to Reporting Database”. This will be grayed out until all exceptions for the selected date are processed

6. Data is moved to the reporting database/ becomes available for review in Business Intelligence

System Adjustments

1. Access DataPoint (ETMS> Operations > DataPoint card)  
2. Click 'System Adjustments' in menu bar on left side under Admin; brings up System Adjustments calendar 
3. Select the day you plan to enter reductions or additions for (days that have already been processed will display in green on the calendar, if the 'daily processing is complete' button is being used) 
4. Determine if day was not typical (Atypical day= all service cancelled- agency closed)
5. Use toggle to identify as a typical day to change (if atypical selected, then this date’s data will not be included in reporting of averages, but data will still be part of totals) 
   • Were there extra service and hours/miles? 
   • Was there a service cancellation?  
6. Document additions and/or subtractions to scheduled service for that day 
   • Additions – Tripper for event, special service, major detour that increased drive time, select route - Enter as whole numbers (4.6 miles)
   • Subtractions – breakdowns or cancellations (missed service has to be noted as a negative number) - Enter using negative values (-4.6 miles)
7. Review schedule data (to determine distance missed and frequency) then subtract 

Review Completed Trip Samples

1. Click "Review Trip Samples" from task menu below calendar
2. Review auto-populated trip samples, as preferred (software algorithm accepts your most robust/ completed trips for you)
3. Click on “Back” button to go back to main calendar
4. View the values for any entered adjustments and trip samples that you saved.
   • These will display in the task menu:

Supporting Documents  

Related SOPs 

1. S0P-001-01 Planning – Schedule Data Management and Implementation 
2. S0P-002-01 Planning – Daily Schedule Analysis 
3. S0P-004-01 Planning – Announcement Creation 
4. S0P-005-01 Planning – Using the Replay Tool