Driving Efficiency with Real-Time Route Management
We partnered with Go-Ahead, one of the UK's leading transport providers, to create Live Route Insights (LRI), a first-of-its-kind real-time bus management tool. This powerful B2B application helps staff spot issues, adjust bus distribution on the fly, and directly improve service regularity; avoiding performance-based financial penalties and creating a significant strategic advantage.
Client
Go-Ahead
The Challenge
In London's competitive transport market, maintaining a consistent and reliable service is paramount. Transport for London (TfL) incentivises bus operators with financial rewards for ensuring buses are evenly distributed across each route, preventing vehicle "bunching" and long gaps for passengers.
Go-Ahead needed a way to move from reactive problem-solving to proactive, real-time control. The goal was to empower their performance managers and garage controllers with a tool to meet and exceed TfL's stringent service targets, reducing penalties and improving the passenger experience.
What We Did
In a focused, agile 8-week sprint, our team designed, built, and launched the Live Route Insights (LRI) platform from the ground up.
- Real-Time Visualisation: The tool uses live bus location data to show the actual distribution of buses on the road versus the planned schedule, giving controllers an instant, accurate overview.
- "Glanceable" by Design: The interface was purpose-built for large screens in busy control centres, allowing operators to absorb complex route performance data at a glance without needing to click or scroll.
- Intuitive & Actionable: The UI enables users to instantly compare the performance of different routes, drill down into detailed views of current bus locations, and make informed, critical adjustments in real-time.
The Results
The LRI tool has had a transformative impact on Go-Ahead's operations and commercial performance.
- Widespread Adoption: The platform has been rapidly embraced by controllers, performance managers, and C-suite stakeholders, becoming an essential part of daily operations.
- Improved Margins: By enabling proactive service adjustments, LRI directly helps reduce wait-time penalties and secure performance bonuses from TfL, which will lead to improved profitability.
- Strategic & Competitive Advantage: As the first tool of its type in the bus industry, LRI has given Go‑Ahead a powerful operational edge over their competitors.
- Award-Winning Innovation: The project's success was recognised with a Silver at the BIMA Awards, highlighting its significant impact on the transport sector.
