Maintaining accurate service levels is essential for smooth transit operations. Service level definitions include Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Fridays (weekdays), Saturdays, Sundays ( weekends). This article outlines two areas of action:
1. Best practices to follow when managing your schedule data attributes after its import into Avail. These steps ensure the schedule data is properly configured and includes all service level definitions for the calendar year in ETMS.
2. Informing our Technical Support Team is also crucial, to ensure you have communicated your timeline so Avail can proactively provide support if needed.
Who Should Use These Practices?
These guidelines apply to anyone involved in defining or managing your agency’s service levels, most commonly these staff are your schedulers, planners, and sometimes, operations managers.
Key Best Practices
Review and Update Your Service Level Calendar
Your schedule data is the backbone of your operations. Digital scheduling packages provide essential, usable data for your public service offerings. When the digital schedule is live, it is used to track metrics in a variety of ways:
- To allow vehicle logins for your CAD/AVL vehicle operators- collecting boards, alights, fares, vehicle miles and hours
- To view live data on your myStop tools for your ridership base- trip planning needs
- For dispatch to use to monitor service in Operations- safety, communications, schedule adherence, disruption tools use
- For maintenance needs- vehicle health issues and monitoring
- To collect metrics for required agency reporting- federal, NTD, agency analysis needs, and more.
If service levels are not defined for any reportable revenue period in ETMS, it prevents use of the schedule itself across your Operations for the undefined period/s. Always check your Service Level Calendar definitions and update them as needed after you import a schedule into Avail.
IMPORTANT: Define all service levels in ETMS for the entire current year, to prevent any issues and use of the digital schedule for the upcoming year well before January 1st. This prevents disruptions, as mentioned above, to avoid issues when you anticipate using the schedule.
Review how to check your service levels here: DataPoint - Scheduled Miles & Hours Reporting
- Why it matters: Undefined service levels will block operator logins, disrupt overall service delivery and skew your reporting needs (agency and ridership).
- Recommended timeline: Always complete any needed updates two weeks before your next service change to allow time for review and adjustments.
Schedule Data Import Process
To learn how to update your schedule data, refer to Schedule Data Import documentation here: Schedule Data Import ( Includes Video). This process ensures your data is formatted correctly and ready for integration. Pay special attention to the Service Levels section in the article, to learn how and when to manage your service levels in ETMS.
Communicate Schedule Deployments to Avail
Notify Avail at least two weeks before a schedule deployment. Advance notice allows your Avail team to prepare for your schedule changes and provide proactive support.
- How to notify: Submit a case via the Availtec Portal: availtecportal.com
- What happens next: Avail will respond via a portal comment and update the case status to 'Pending Customer Review'
- After the case has been satisfied, your staff will need to close the portal case, entering comments as preferred
Important Deadlines
Annual Service Level Definition Deadline: All agencies must define their service levels for the upcoming year by January 1st to avoid system access issues. Best practice includes doing this after importing a schedule into ETMS for use in your system.