Andrew Fraser, Sales Director of Distinctive Systems, explains to Jade Smith how the company’s award-winning software helps make coach and tour operators’ lives easier
Distinctive Systems at a glance
The respected firm has three main systems, which offer features for the road passenger transport industry. All three systems integrate where appropriate. Here’s a brief outline:
- Coach Manager is the company’s private hire and contract booking system. It manages quotations, bookings, invoices and payments.
- Tour Booking System is for operators that offer tours and excursions. It handles back-office and online reservations, enabling operators to book individuals on certain trips and manage pick-ups, for example.
- Vehicle Maintenance System deals with maintenance planning and workshop management. It talks to Coach Manager, so an operator can see when a vehicle is off the road to plan maintenance.
York-based Distinctive Systems is a software company that primarily develops management systems for coach and tour operators. The family-owned business was founded in 1982 through Mike Whitehead, Distinctive Systems’ Managing Director, developing a programme for his father’s coach business that became Coach Manager. [wlm_nonmember][…]
By subscribing you will benefit from:
- Operator & Supplier Profiles
- Face-to-Face Interviews
- Lastest News
- Test Drives and Reviews
- Legal Updates
- Route Focus
- Industry Insider Opinions
- Passenger Perspective
- Vehicle Launches
- and much more!
Andrew Fraser, the firm’s Sales Director, took up the story: “I joined the business 28 years ago when there were five of us – we now have 18 members of staff in the UK.
“Everything is done in-house. Our website allows us to get enquiries from all over the world. About 15 years ago we started getting enquires from North America, so we have taken the plunge to create our own company where we employ a nine-strong team across America. As that was developing, enquiries followed from Australia, so we created a dedicated business based in Melbourne with two members of staff.”
Coach Manager
Currently in use with over 1,500 operators and handling 1.85 million private hires per annum, Coach Manager is a private hire and contract booking system.
In addition to handling bookings, it allocates vehicles and drivers, provides client confirmations, driver work tickets and invoicing. It also has a built-in sales ledger with financial reporting facilities and an optional link to Sage 50.
Within Coach Manager there are two new Portals and third one is in development:
- The Client Portal for clients to request quotations, make payments and review bookings;
- The Driver Portal for drivers to view their allocations, download work tickets and accept or decline work; and
- The Operation Portal (in development) for the traffic office to view vehicle and driver allocations, update allocations in real-time and integrates with the Vehicle Maintenance System (VMS) for defect and maintenance information.
Coach Manager – Client Portal
“A couple of years ago some operators told us they wanted the client journey improved, streamlining the quotation and booking side, so we developed the Client Portal,” Andrew explained.
“Operators can now have a form on their website where a customer can fill in details for their proposed journey.
“Lots of operators have some sort of contact form on their website – the information from which is usually sent to the operator as an email. Our system instead directly sends the information into Coach Manager, efficiently informing the operator of a new job request.
“The online form can be simple or detailed. The operator has control over what fields need to be completed for the form to be sent, and how close to today’s date they are willing to accept quotation details.
“Customers enter their details – if their email address is linked to an existing account the system will invite them to log in. The customer can pick a date and time, their start and end locations, and the number of passengers. Our systems are integrated with Google Maps, so selecting start and end points is simple.
“Clients can also select what vehicle they would prefer, the vehicle descriptions coming from the operator’s back-office systems. It’s quick, simple, easy-to-use and generates a quote number as it works directly with Coach Manager.
“Inside Coach Manager is a list of quotes that come through the website – when a new quote has been requested a popup will appear to alert the operator. The integration with Google Maps aids the operator in planning the journey, based on the speed of a coach for the information to be more accurate for coach operators. That can then be applied to specific quotations to work out the mileage, which also shows how much of that is empty, as some operators have a different rate for empty journeys.
“The operator can see what vehicle the client has asked for, and then manually price the job or use the built-in price generator, which is completely user definable and facilitates rates that fluctuate throughout the year. A lot of operators have problems with managing quotes, whereas this gives them the opportunity to price something very quickly, accurately and under their complete control.
“Finally, the operator can confirm a quote and send the customer an email confirmation. The customer can log in and view their quotes and accept and pay for quotations online. The payment method is chosen, and the payments then go to Sage Pay to be processed, updating the back-office. Many other systems send a notification email to say the customer has paid, but it doesn’t update the record like our system does.
“Coach Manager allows operators to be more efficient, as customers can navigate through their bookings and communicate with the operator without any requirement to pick up the phone and speak to them directly.”
An additional option is Distinctive Systems’ integration called ‘Where Is My Coach?’ If the operator allows it, the customer can view where the vehicle is on the day of their journey. Andrew explained: “The operator will already have tracking units installed on their vehicles, and we are integrated with over a dozen GPS companies such as TomTom and Fleetmatics, so the operator can provide the customer with a URL to view where the coach is. We have operators who have reported they are winning work based on the fact they can offer this facility.”
Coach Manager – Driver Portal
Through Distinctive Systems’ back-office system, operators can allocate drivers and vehicles to specific jobs. The work can be colour coded to denote various types of work such as a school contract.
“Traditionally, operators call their drivers to inform them of the next day’s work, whereas our Driver Portal does this electronically,” said Andrew. “Drivers can log in to the Coach Manager website and the operator controls how far into the future their drivers can see their allocated work. The driver can view their work tickets, so they don’t have to physically come to the office to get the information. If the operator chooses, drivers can also accept or decline jobs remotely.
“The operator can directly send the details of a job to a driver’s smartphone, so they don’t have to log in, and receives a notification when a driver has viewed a job. This is a very efficient way of communicating with drivers and allows them to be more involved in the business.
“There is a facility built into the work tickets where the operator can notify drivers that the job has been altered. They can make as many changes as they like before clicking a button to inform the driver the work ticket is ready. That sends an email notifying them that they can look at their allocated work, which can be done for a range of dates as well as individual days. If changes are made after this point the system will update the driver accordingly.”
Driver Walk-around Check App
The Driver Walk-around Check App is a free mobile app that works in conjunction with VMS, or with a new standalone application called the VMS Walk-around Check Edition. Existing users of Coach Manager and Tour Booking System can download a free copy of the VMS Walk-around Check Edition.
“The new mobile app makes it easier to ensure drivers are carrying out their daily walk-around check and report any defects found, by guiding them through the process,” Andrew said. “All the information stems from the back-office systems. The driver enters the details of the vehicle they’re going to be driving and a list comes up of what to check, based on the DVSA’s minimum requirements to maintain roadworthiness. Distinctive Systems provides a template for this, but operators can edit it according to their specific vehicles. For operators that don’t have our maintenance system, we provide them with a simplified version to manage the walk-around checks.
“The driver walk-around check begins with a distance reading check. The driver can then check off the various parts of the vehicle on the app. When a defect is found, the driver can choose from a list of predefined common defects or enter their own description. Up to four supporting photographs can also be included.
“Immediately after the driver has entered a fault, the operator receives an email with details of the recorded fault. The walk-around check can’t be submitted until everything has been completed. Defects that develop after a check has been completed can also be recorded.
“The mobile app stores the results locally until it picks up either a WiFi or mobile data signal. It then uploads the results to a secure cloud-based server operated by Distinctive Systems. VMS then downloads the results directly into the VMS database. The workshop is automatically alerted as incoming defects are received.
“As a backup measure, the cloud-based server automatically emails a nominated address the moment it receives a new defect report. The mobile app can also be used to submit new defects as and when they occur.
“Defects submitted using the mobile app automatically connect to VMS’ existing functionality for creating a new defect description and scheduling it into the workshop. This ensures the traffic office is kept appraised of all outstanding vehicle defects.
“The system reports missing walk around checks and the average time it takes to complete a check for each driver. It updates Coach Manager, so any vehicles with a defect will have a tool symbol next to it to highlight the fact there’s an issue.”
In the example Andrew provided, a driver submitted a walk around check which only took three minutes. The location of the driver was recorded when the check was completed – in this example it was at his house and nowhere near the vehicle. The operator can take action and then demonstrate to DVSA they have dealt with this behaviour. The operators can also inform their drivers that they have access to this information, to prevent this behaviour in the first place.”
Licence Check
Distinctive Systems is also integrated with Derby-based driving licence verification specialist Licence Check, which approaches DVSA on behalf of an operator to obtain all the licence details for a driver.
Andrew continued: “We can keep all the licence categories of an employee on file, such as Driver CPC, tacho cards and DBS (Disclosure & Barring Service) checks. In short, anything a driver needs to do their job can be saved.
“Licence Check charges the operator a look-up fee for each driver, so the information can be gained from DVSA automatically. Operators can do this themselves, but if they have a lot of drivers it can take a long time, especially if they’re being encouraged to do this two or three times a year.
“This system allows the operator to be more efficient and kept up to date with the information with each driver, seeing at a glance if any drivers have issues.
Vehicle Maintenance System
“Our Vehicle Maintenance System is firmly established with many operators Andrew said. “It was written to comply with DVSA standards and we have made sure it more than meets the minimum maintenance requirements.
“The job card has a complete list of what the mechanic needs to check on a vehicle. We have made an electronic version which can be viewed on a tablet. This replaces the previous admin heavy paper-based system which the operator may have used in the past.
“The mechanic goes through the list of checks they need to carry out, note what work was done and then sign it. That automatically transfers to the back-office system which improves efficiency. This has been hugely popular and the number of operators using this function is steadily growing.
“In association with the other work we’ve done with the Vehicle Maintenance System, we’ve spent a lot of time ensuring all the requirements were correct for our system to qualify for the Earned Recognition trial. We are one of the IT systems providers named by the DVSA meaning our system can be used to gain Earned Recognition.”
Support and improvements
Distinctive Systems offers its products either as a simple, express version or as a full version. Operators can choose to buy the system outright or take out a subscription. A yearly maintenance fee covers new features and ongoing support.
“Existing users are entitled to the Client Portal, Driver Portal and the Operations Portal as part of their software maintenance,” Andrew explained.
“Another feature we introduced some years ago is Coach Manager Connect. An operator who is struggling to cover a booking due to a driver shortage, for example, can communicate with other Coach Manager users to see if they can help with a job. If they find someone who agrees, the details of that particular job can be seamlessly transferred over to the other operator.
“Keeping operators up to date with our work and the systems that are available to them is quite a challenge as they’re naturally very busy. We offer training courses which are included in the software maintenance charge, so operators can send staff to our offices to learn about our systems’ functionality. Coach Manager courses are particularly popular. We are in the process of applying for planning permission to add to the building a new two-story extension which will include a new training room, as we need to expand now to meet demand.”
The future
Perhaps understandably, Andrew was careful about discussing what Distinctive Systems had planned for the future, due to potentially giving too much away.
He said: “We’ve never been as busy as we are now and our growth is very positive. We have five developers in-house at the moment who are constantly developing new features. All I can say is: watch this space.”
[/wlm_ismember]