Ditching the Cookie Cutter: How GLTC Outsmarted their Inefficient Schedules
The Greater Lynchburg Transit Company (GLTC) in Lynchburg, VA was a part of Remix’s Early Customer Program for Scheduling. We’ve been measuring outcomes for the new product, and have documented the findings below.
By the numbers:
- With Remix, GLTC expects to save $102k annually in operating costs, time savings, and customer service fees
- GLTC eliminated all split shifts while maintaining the same level of service, and estimates their next bid with Remix will take 2 days instead of 4 weeks
A Legacy Software Without a Scheduler On Staff
For John Rayman, former Assistant General Manager at GLTC, getting through a scheduling bid used to be a dreary affair. Ever since their devoted scheduler left the agency, no one in the office was quite sure how to use the agency’s scheduling software.
“It certainly wasn’t something I had the time to train myself on,” Rayman explains. GLTC’s hands were tied, forced to outsource the scheduling work to the software company itself.
Little Control over Scheduling Outputs
But farming out the work only created more headaches for the GLTC team. Rayman had little control over the bid’s outputs — specifically, the bid sheet — despite knowing exactly the criteria that needed to be met.
Eliminating split shifts was particularly important to the GLTC operations team. Splitting up drivers’ work into morning and evening half-shifts — and essentially asking operators to stand by for long stretches of the day — had plagued the agency’s schedules for years, and their bottom line was starting to feel the effects. “When I looked at our schedules, there were two or three people’s worth of hours that I should’ve been able to reallocate to other routes,” Rayman explains.
Up to that point, though, GLTC’s scheduling vendor insisted the software was unable to eliminate split shifts or produce efficient schedules. Frustrated, Rayman made do, knowing that every schedule he posted left money on the table and slowly eroded operator morale.
“My entire Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before Christmas, I was emailing back and forth with them, trying to get the software to spit out something that was usable.”
Working 14-Hour Days during the Holidays
Rayman’s frustration turned into full-blown fury during last winter’s bid. After multiple back and forths with his scheduling vendor throughout December, he couldn’t output a schedule that met his requirements. “Essentially, they were inputting our info into the software, but weren’t able to mold the algorithm to our needs,” Rayman says.
While the rest of the world was exchanging gifts and drinking eggnog by the fire, Rayman waded through spreadsheets for 14 hours a day, arguing about bid sheets with his customer service rep. “My entire Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before Christmas I was emailing back and forth with them, trying to get the software to spit out something that was usable,” Rayman remembers.
Four weeks and 9 versions in, Rayman finally had a January schedule. At that point, he knew it was time to find another way.
Saving $102,000 and Gaining Two Drivers
Now GLTC is working with Remix, as a part of Remix’s Early Customer Program for Scheduling. Since early 2016, GLTC now has fine-tuned control over their outputs. The team can rapidly work through multiple iterations of bid sheets in minutes, eliminating suboptimal outcomes early on.
In perhaps their biggest triumph, GLTC effortlessly eliminated split shifts in their latest bid. Remix was able to run scenarios that compared driver-friendliness against operating cost, and outputted a clean, optimized schedule. “It just took the headache out of trying to line everything up,” Rayman says. Remix even confirmed Rayman’s hunch that a split-free schedule and an efficient schedule were not mutually exclusive. Last summer, the operations team filled two open slots on their roster by moving two drivers from overstaffed routes instead of hiring new drivers.
Rayman estimates that in its final state, Remix’s Scheduling platform will cut the bid process from two weeks down to a day or two. “My personal time savings is looking like 45 or 50 hours of pure work from a management standpoint,” he points out. With that extra time, he’ll be able to focus on actually running the agency.
“Including my time, the drivers savings, not paying bid fees, and savings from customer service fees, it’s probably about $102,000.”
Painting a Holistic Picture with Planning + Scheduling
By using the Scheduling product in addition to Remix Planning, GLTC looks forward to the holistic planning picture they’ll be able to paint during the entire planning lifecycle. Drafting budget-neutral plans, for example, will be much simpler and more consistent.
“Since we’re mainly publicly funded, we have to keep somewhere near the same costs with service changes,” Rayman says. “With one Planning and Scheduling system, we’ll have a very good idea of fixed costs for proposed changes early on — from drawing routes all the way to staffing rosters.” For an agency where incorporating scheduling costs into the planning phase was done on the back of a napkin, this is a game-changer.
“Remix just makes my job easier. It creates all kinds of efficiencies throughout the operations department. It creates all kinds of efficiencies with me,” Rayman explains. “And we all know that in operations, efficiency is the name of the game.”
Interested in joining Remix’s Early Customer Program? Learn more here or let us know at team@remix.com.
