Chaos ensues when the planned schedule is disrupted by the many daily challenges faced
by any business AND when ALL the information needed is not readily available AND accurate.
On the WorkSheet = Daily Diary = Operations Schedule or Whiteboard (or Blackboard) ALL of
the operational information is available at the click of a button. The current status
is VISIBLE and the reason for any changes that have been made are noted.
Column 1 : Row :
This is the sequence or row number of the Shift on the WorkSheet.
Column 2 : Time :
This is the scheduled departure time for the shift in TIME, Shiftname sequence.
Column 3 : Active :
Is the Shift active? PROVIDED both BUS and DRIVER have been allocated a click on the
Active button will change the Shift from Not Active (with the RED BAR +
a B if it is a Charter BOOKING ) to Active ( with a Y = normal shift or a C = Charter)
Column 5 : Bus No :
If a Bus is allocated / reserved for this Shift the Bus NUmber will be displayed else a
yellow bar will serve as a warning that a Bus has not yet been allocated to the shift.
Click on the grey button for an allocated bus and ALL the details will be displayed for
the bus including a bar which will tell you if the bus has been allocated for further
shifts for THIS day with the ability to remove the bus from this shift and other
relevant options.
Click on the grey button in the Bus column
when it has NOT been allocated and the action screen will include the option to allocate
a bus. If this action is selected a DETAILED bar chart will be presented of all buses
in suitability and availability sequence for allocation to the Shift.
This bar chart includes all necessary information for the decision process including a
table of bookings for each bus for the next 4 days as well. On this 24-hour chart each
bus is shown with bar covering the 24 hours with GREEN=available YELLOW=allocated/booked
and RED=out on the road or not available (maintenance etc....)
In the case of Drivers the RED=sick or away on leave.
Column 6 : Driver No :
This column works in exactly the same way as the buses in Column 5 but all information
relates to Drivers.
The action screens for both Bus and Driver includes options
a) to specify that THE SHIFT is running late - this WILL reflect in TimeTable queries
to the system
b) reassign buses or drivers to other shifts
c) insert notes AGAINST THE SHIFT ON THE WORKSHEET for any special activities that need
to be passed on to ops., admin. or the drivers or any relevant info.
d) flag a driver off sick so that another driver can be allocated to the Shift
e) or analyse ALL Driver Hours and Routes Completed or due to be completed
and display this information to help assess
whether a Driver can be allocated to another shift etc...
Column 7 : Notes :
The notes column contains a brief description of normal shifts. They are identified as
either normal, split or overnight so that operations will know if the shift should
appear twice on the WorkSheet (for split and overnight shifts).
Charters contain a summary about the Charter as 455555/M-2 of 4 days P-77 B-1 of 2
which means that this Charter has a Grade / Grid of 455555 ( which indicates any
special resource requirements for buses or drivers ) it is M=Multi day and this day
on the WorkSheet is the 2nd day of 4 days with a passenger count of 77 and also that
this is bus number 1 of 2 buses (which means that there will also be a second row on
the WorkSheet to cover the second BUS for the charter - because we will need to allocate
a BUS and a DRIVER for the 2nd Bus). These allocations are ALWAYS completed on the FIRST
DAY of any Charter logically.
Any Notes entered against Bus or Driver by OPs. staff are recorded in the respective row
so that they can be actioned by Ops. Staff.
In additional ANY and ALL changes made to Buses or Drivers is automatically recorded in
the appropriate row by BusWise such as /dchgd BC 12:22
which indicated that the present driver allocated to the shift was allocated after the
Driver BC was CHANGED to another shift. If the Driver reported in sick then the comment
would be different.
Column 8 : Rid :
In certain extreme conditions a SHIFT may need to be cancelled for the day. To do this
this Row Identifier (rID) must be know.
Column 9 & 10 : Class / Day :
Is for information so that Ops. can identify which selection was made from ALL of the
SHIFTS available so as to structure this WorkSheet and the associated Driver Rosters.
At the end of a week (which is any business week suitable to the operations of the
Company) the WorkSheets for that week are stored into archive where they cannot be
changed in any way. From the data that is available on this WorkSheet including the times
that Drivers were changed etc BusWise has sufficient
detail to be able to produce statistics and
Driver Payslips from the completed
WorkSheets. The statistical analysis of the Shifts also enables the identification of
uneconomical Shift structures where non-driving (standing)
time is excessive and similar cost saving activities.