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Oppland fylkeskommune,
School and Demand Response Transport

System for planning and operating school transport and other forms of demand response transport

“A conservative estimate would be that we would save 7-9%. In reality, this amount is up to 13-14%. This is a lot for a budget of NOK 350 million, and we would even get more transport out of the amount approved”. Geir Kristiansen, Department Manager, Oppland fylkeskommune

Organisation: Oppland fylkeskommune
Number of school runs per year: 125,207
Number of pupils per year: 215,809
Primary areas: School transport, TT transport and demand response routes along with service routes
Trapeze Products: Trapeze PASS

THE ORGANISATION

Norway has regional administrative counties called ’fylker’, which are similar to the previous division of counties in Denmark. Norway is divided into 19 ’fylker’ and Oppland fylkeskommune is one of them. The ’fylke’ consists of 26 municipalities and is the same size as Jutland, Denmark. Oppland is a mountain region with a population density of just 7 inhabitants per km2 compared to Jutland, Denmark that has 75 inhabitants per km2.

Oppland fylkeskommune manages the finances for all public paid transport in the ’fylke’ such as school transport, demand response and service routes, all public transport running internally in the ’fylke’ as well as TT transport.
TT transport is an offer for people that are unable to use public transport due to physical or psychological reasons. Normally, TT transport in Oppland takes place within the ’fylke’ borders and is primarily used by citizens over 70. A new offer, that Oppland fylkeskommune is offering from 3 April 2009, is flex-transport which is a combination of public transport and demand response bus transport.

The geography and the population density are factors that make demands on planning and transport execution. In Oppland fylkeskommune, they have been thinking creatively and found special solutions so that it is possible to reach all the outlying areas and all pupils and other potential users. Among these creative solutions are the combi-lines, the hour vehicle (an offer for patients) and the flex-lines.

For years, Oppland fylkeskommune has been using Trapeze PASS to manage demand response transport and also has a collaboration with Hedmark fylkeskommune. Sykehuset Innlandet HF [The Innlandet Hospital HF] has been using Trapeze PASS to manage patient transport from a joint transport office.

In spring 2009, Sykehuset Innlandet HF [The Innlandet Hospital HF] decided to pull out of the collaboration to start its own transport office.

Oppland was therefore left with a planning system that had the capacity to manage more transport than it was being used for. This is why Oppland fylkeskommune chose to focus more on the transport areas the system already managed and to involve other transport tasks in Trapeze PASS.

Oppland fylkeskommune chose to involve planning, administration and the operation of school transport in Trapeze PASS. Until now, school transport was managed manually in Excel.

This form of manual management is a resource-demanding process where it is not possible to optimise transport and long-term planning. By implementing a digital solution that gives Oppland a large saving potential and efficiency improvements, the ’fylke’ can then offer its citizens more transport possibilities and better transport without giving the ’fylke’ additional costs.

THE SOLUTION

The project started in autumn 2008 and there were some challenges in defining how the system should be used and how the project was to run.

”We had some challenges during the spring and autumn but after having talked this through with Trapeze, we sorted out a number of things and laid down a plan that we could agree on. We also got the system we wanted. I think things worked out well. We are experiencing a dynamic and unified solution which is really, really good,” says Geir Kristiansen, Department Manager, responsible for the project at Oppland.

Oppland started to learn how to plan school transport routes and to use templates in Trapeze PASS, and then started to enter pupil and address data. A two-part calendar system with even and uneven weeks was specially developed for Oppland.

”We have a lot of pupils who are transported differently in the uneven weeks compared to the even weeks, and we got Trapeze to develop an addition to the system so we could manage the even/uneven weeks. This means that transport is organised based on the children’s needs. For example, children from divorced homes can be picked up from their mum’s home and their dad’s home alternately. In this way, Trapeze PASS can contribute towards creating larger customer satisfaction and make it possible for Oppland to meet its goal of supplying an optimised effort within the transport area, ” Geir Kristiansen continues.

The pilot municipality in implementing Trapeze PASS is Femund Kommune [Femund Municipality]. Their aim is to be 100% prepared to use PASS for the start of school on 8 August 2009.

Along side the implementation of PASS for school transport, Oppland fylkeskommune has been working on implementing PASS for demand response transport and TT transport in other municipalities. This work started in Gausdal Kommune [Gausdal Municipality] on 3 April 2009 and will be carried on in Øyer Kommune [Øyer Municipality] and other municipalities.

THE RESULT

Oppland fylkeskommune expects to achieve a lot of advantages with this ongoing implementation of PASS, as Geir Kristiansen mentions:

”We can see the many advantages we will be getting. We knew the system from before but then we were only using 25-30% of it and from this we experienced an operational gain of 60-65% by combining transport; but now we are utilising the system much more e.g. by using templates for specific periods and travel patterns. The templates, that cover a school year, give us predictability in the traffic, which is completely different compared to before. We can now predict with certainty the need for transport for most week days in the coming school year in the areas where Trapeze PASS has been implemented.”

Combination transport
Due to the large distances and the population density, Oppland fylkeskommune has introduced a transport system for pupils called Combi-lines. This unique transport offer operates by picking the pupils up at home by taxi and driving them to a bus stop where he or she will be transported to school by bus.

”This is a completely special combination which requires new adaptations in Trapeze PASS, but it has meant that we now can manage the Combi-lines much better and more efficiently,” says Geir Kristiansen.

More and better transport
Oppland fylkeskommune has high expectations to the utilisation of Trapeze PASS for school transport and other areas of transport.

”A conservative estimate would be that we would save 7-9%. In reality, this amount is up to 13-14%. This is a lot for a budget of NOK 350 million, and we would even get more transport out of the amount approved,” says Geir Kristiansen.

THE FUTURE

The next goal for Oppland fylkeskommune is to employ more combination transport. Geir Kristiansen explains:

”The next step consists of both a political and practical goal: working actively towards public paid combination transport. First of all, this will be a case of paying subsidies to TT users, but over time we expect the users to become more interested in combination transport since, in this way, they will be able to travel three times as far for the same price! We believe that within one year we will see a change in travel patterns for users of both demand response transport and TT transport by using more active combination transport.”