For every Home-to-School (HTS) route you create in Bytecurve360, a ‘driving task’ will be automatically created in the system. This driving task must be performed on every school day in order to service that route. If a route requires an aide/monitor, you need to create a separate monitor task to service the route. At present, you need to create monitor tasks manually wherever required. The feature to create monitor tasks automatically will be included in the near future.
The Scheduling screen provides multiple features to set up a Master Plan for the daily execution of these tasks, enabling the operator to:
- Assign drivers, monitors and vehicles without any schedule conflicts, including the ability to split a task across multiple employees across different days of the week
- Assign appropriate ‘departure’ and ‘return’ depots, if the vehicles are operated out of multiple depots and park-out locations. Bytecurve360 also shows the estimated deadhead time and distance for different departure / return depots, which can be used to optimize depot assignments for each route.
- Add any other recurring task that needs to be performed at a set frequency, such as ‘daily shuttle service to pick up employees from their homes’, ‘weekly safety meetings’, etc.
- Set up meaningful task start or ‘clock-in’ time / task-end or ‘clock-out’ time, based on:
- Yard departure time / yard return time
- Pre-trip inspection time / post-trip inspection time
- Walk time from the office to the bus / walk time from the bus to the office
Consider the example of an AM route that has its first stop at 8:00 AM:
- The system estimates the drive-time from the designated yard to the first stop and sets the ‘depot-departure’ time accordingly. In the example above , the drive time is estimated as 15 minutes, and hence the depot departure time is set at 7:45 AM.
- The system then looks at the allowed pre-trip time, which is configurable at the location level. In the example below, the driver is allowed 15 minutes for pre-trip inspection, which means he/she should get to the bus and start the pre-trip inspection at 7:30 AM
- The system also allows some time to be allocated to the driver to get to the bus after clocking in, since the buses can be parked at a distance from the office. This is configurable by yard, since this is likely to be minimal for park-outs, and quite material for larger yards. In the example, this is set to 5 minutes, which then results in a clock-in time for the task at 7:25 AM.
The clock-out time for the task is determined as follows, starting from the time the driver is scheduled to depart from his/her last stop of the Route (which is 9:00 AM in the example below).
- The system estimates the drive time from the last stop to the designated return yard and sets the ‘yard return’ time for the Route. In the example above, the driver is scheduled to leave the last stop at 9:00 AM, and the estimated drive time to the designated yard is 15 minutes and hence the ‘yard return’ time is set at 9:15 AM.
- The driver is expected to perform a ‘post-trip’ inspection after returning to the yard, and the time allowed for this is configurable at the location level. In the example, this is set to 10 minutes, and the driver is expected to complete this by 9:25 AM.
- After completing the post-trip, the driver needs to clock-out and end his/her task. The systm allows some time to be set for the driver to walk back from the bus to the office before clocking out, and since this could vary by yard (or park-out) this is configurable at the yard level. In the example, this is set to 5 minutes and this results in the clock-out time of 9:30 AM.
Note: If there is a change in the Route that results in a different first stop location or time, the system adjusts the yard departure time accordingly.
In order to be at the first stop at 8:00 AM, the system estimates that the vehicle needs to leave the yard at
A sample Schedule screen is shown below:
The table below explains the fields of the Schedule screen:
Field Name | Description |
Task Name | Refers to the name of the task. For HTS tasks, this represents the name of a Route (comprising of one or more packaged Runs). For non HTS tasks, this could be any label indicative of the task, such as Shuttle service – 01, Weekly safety meeting, etc. |
Dispatch | Refers to the shift into which the task is classified, usually based on the start time of the task. Typical values are ‘AM’ for the morning shift, ‘MD’ for mid-day and ‘PM for the afternoon shift. This attribute is important if the location has shift level Guarantee rules. |
Day of Week | Refers to the days of the week that the employee is assigned to the task. |
Driver | Refers to the employee assigned to the task. If a task requires a driver and a monitor, the schedule screen will have rows, one for the driver assigned to the task, and the other for the monitor assigned to the task. If a task has not been assigned an employee yet, this column will be display ‘unassigned’. |
Vehicle | Refers to the vehicle assigned to the task. If a task requires a vehicle, this column will display the vehicle assigned to the task. If a vehicle is not required (such as for monitor tasks), this column will display ‘N/A’. If a vehicle is required, but not yet assigned the label ‘unassigned’ will be displayed. |
Task Code | Refers to the task code of the task, which in turn is designed to driver various attributes of the task. For more information, refer to Task Code section. |
Task Start | Refers to the scheduled start time of the task, the official ‘clock-in’ time for the task. This is calculated by the system using the formula: [Task Start] = [Yard Departure] – [Pre-Trip time] – [Walk/Buffer Time] |
Walk / Buffer Time | Refers to the time given to the driver to walk from the office to the bus. |
Pre-Trip | Refers to the time given to the driver to do a pre-trip inspection before the bus is taken out to pick-up students. This is relevant only if the task requires a vehicle. |
Yard Departure | Refers to the time at which the vehicle needs to depart from the depot in order to reach the first stop of the Route on time. This time is derived as [Arrival time at first stop] – [estimated time to travel from the depot location to the first stop location]. The system uses Google Maps services to estimate this distance. |
Yard Return | Refers to the time at which the vehicle needs to return to the depot. This is determined by the system as [time at the last stop of the Route] + [estimated time to travel from the last stop to the depot]. The system uses Google Maps services to estimate this distance. |
Post Trip | Refers to the time given to the driver to do a post trip inspection after returning to the yard. |
Walk/ Buffer Time | Refers to the time given to the driver to walk from the bus back to the office, at the end of the route. |
Task End | Refers to the scheduled end time of the task, the official ‘clock-out’ time for the task. This is calculated by the system using the formula: [Task End] = [Yard Return] + [Post Trip] + [Walk/Buffer Time] |
Total Time | Refers to the total time allotted for the task. It is the difference of the time between Task Start and Task End times or [clock-out time] – [clock-in time]. |
Start Date | Refers to the effective start date of the task. For HTS routes, this would be the effective start date of the route. Note: this is not the effective date of the vehicle or employee assignment. |
End Date | Refers to the effective end date of the task. For HTS routes, this would be the effective end date of the route. |
Update scheduled times
When you make changes in the schedule, some rules may apply depending on Operational Settings set for Location.
1) Change Yard Departure/ Return time.
When Operational setting Auto-update task time based on change to yard departure/return times = yes, and Yard Departure/Return Time is changed, System will update Start/End Time using a formula:
Start Time = Yard Departure Time - Pre-Trip Time - Walk/Buffer Time.
End Time = Yard Return Time + Post-Trip Time + Walk/Buffer Time.
When Operational setting Auto-update task time based on change to yard departure/return times = no, and Yard Departure/Return Time is changed, System will make recalculation based on next formula:
Walk/Buffer Time = Yard Departure Time - Start Time - Pre-Trip Time .
Walk/Buffer Time = End Time - Yard Return Time - Post-Trip Time.
In this case Walk/Buffer Time could be negative. It means that there is no enough time for employee to walk to/from a bus and perform pre/post-trip inspection. System will not allow to save negative values, so you have to make corresponding adjustments.
2) Change Pre/Post-Trip time.
When Operational setting Auto-update task time based on change to pre/post trip times= yes, and Pre/Post-Trip time is changed, System will update Start/End Time using a formula:
Start Time = Yard Departure Time - Pre-Trip Time - Walk/Buffer Time.
End Time = Yard Return Time + Post-Trip Time + Walk/Buffer Time.
When Operational setting Auto-update task time based on change to pre/post trip times= no, and Pre/Post-Trip time is changed, System will make recalculation based on next formula:
Walk/Buffer Time = Yard Departure Time - Start Time - Pre-Trip Time .
Walk/Buffer Time = End Time - Yard Return Time - Post-Trip Time.
In this case Walk/Buffer Time could be negative. It means that there is no enough time for employee to walk to/from a bus and perform pre/post-trip inspection. System will not allow to save negative values, so you have to make corresponding adjustments.
Update times for a Route
When you assign Runs to a Route, System will update Route times based on first/last stop of the Runs using Google Map services. It is possible to edit Route times on the Schedule screens if it is necessary. However Yard Departure Time could not be set after the first stop of the first Run, and Yard Return Time could not be set before the last stop of the last Run.
In this case System will show a pop-up window with an error message and will not allow to make changes:
Filter options
You can filter the Schedule details displayed in the Schedule Dashboard, based on criteria like Route name / task name, task group, task code, dispatch, employee name, and vehicle number.
1. Click Filter Options
2. The filter options / criteria will be displayed.
3. Select the required values in the filter criteria drop down lists. Refer to the table above for field descriptions and click Submit. Filtered Schedules based on the selected filter criteria will be displayed.
A sample filter result for the criteria Route/Task 100, Dispatch all, Employee Sigmund Freud is shown in the below screenshot.
