Omnibus, which provides software to timetable, schedule, staff, record, manage and publicise services says it is ’cementing its commitment to support bus operators accelerate towards net zero’ – and Oxford Bus Company is the latest to benefit. The software supplier has carried out work around electric vehicle (EV) operations for the company to support the operator’s bid for Government funding as Oxford prepares to deploy large numbers of electric buses under the Government’s ZEBRA scheme. Omnibus created custom performance scenarios on agreed route groupings and advised on the most operable, cost-effective solution with which the operator can roll out a fully electric bus fleet across the city as well as services operated by sister company Thames Travel.
Luke Marion, Finance & Commercial Director of Oxford Bus Company, said: “We’ve had a long-standing partnership with Omnibus and have always highly valued their proactive and positive approach to helping us solve our scheduling challenges. The work they’ve done to support us on the electrification project has been invaluable in helping us understand how we will need to adapt our scheduling practices to deal with new vehicle technologies. Omnibus has used the feedback from ourselves, and from other operators to feed into the development of some really useful improvements to their tools, and we believe these will keep Omnibus at the front of the pack of bus scheduling software for some time to come.”
Kieran Proctor, Omnibus Technical Account Manager, who worked on the project, said: “Oxford Bus Company needed scheduling scenarios running to see how they can maximise the total number of electric miles operated, whilst also considering the limited range of these vehicles – so the vehicle workings needed to be spot on. They also wanted to analyse any impact to driver costs that these revisions may cause. By producing several, realistic, scheduling solutions we were able to consider the various cost implications of each. The customer was delighted with the results, and this level of scrutiny has given them the confidence that they have the best possible plan to introduce a fully electric bus fleet to the streets of Oxford.”
Omnibus has worked on a number of decarbonisation projects for customers in the UK and in Europe. Through active involvement in similar projects and with feedback from customers, the Omnibus team says it has been able to design software improvements that make planning EV solutions much easier.
