How BART improved productivity and train operators’ quality of life with HASTUS-CrewOpt
Major infrastructure renewal requires more efficient and robust scheduling
Scheduling vehicles and crews throughout a major infrastructure-renewal project made it more important than ever for BART’s scheduling solutions to be efficient and robust. The previous in-house software solutions retained many manual processes and could not meet the increased demands for new or revised schedules.
BART adopted HASTUS in 2017 to improve and modernize their processes, increase process efficiency, improve productivity, and ensure the robustness of crew and vehicle schedules.
Schedulers use CrewOpt to improve quality-of-life impacts while increasing productivity
With CrewOpt, BART’s schedulers build a valid crewing solution in less than one hour, allowing them to evaluate multiple scenarios and choose the best solution. In addition to improving the pay-to-platform ratio, optimized roster solutions reduced start-time variation over the week, resulting in better quality of life for train operators.
About BART
- Heavy-rail public transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
- 131 miles of track
- 50 stations
- 405,000 trips on an average weekday (pre-COVID-19 pandemic)
Stats
24 %
fewer rosters with more than 2h day-to-day variation
19%
reduction in pay-to-platform ratio
< 1h
to build a valid crewing solution
Highlights
Rapid network renovation demands new scheduling capabilities
- BART, like many large rail systems in North America, had an ageing network infrastructure requiring renovation
- Voters approved extensive funding for BART to rebuild its network quickly
- Legacy vehicle, crewing, and rostering processes were not going to meet future requirements
- BART launched a call for tenders for an enterprise scheduling system; the contract was awarded to GIRO to implement HASTUS
Challenges overcome with HASTUS
- Changes to the BART network and timetables had been rare; with the legacy vehicle-scheduling system, small adjustments to running or dwell times were complex to apply to a new timetable
- Crew rostering had been a manual procedure, so there had been time to produce only one scenario per roster
- Employee productivity is the only variable BART can use to improve the pay-to-platform ratio
- Employees were keen to limit the variation in starting time across the work week
CrewOpt solutions respect BART’s constraints
- Many constraints defined in BART’s collective bargaining agreement and business rules had to be respected, such as:
- Ensuring that the duration and timing of breaks and the centring of the meal breaks in the duty are valid
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- Planned overtime is not permitted
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- No mainline track reliefs during rush hours
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- Developing a balanced roster solution made from 32 unique rosters with different working conditions
Win-win solution for productivity and train operators’ quality of life
- With CrewOpt, BART’s schedulers quickly develop, compare, and analyse multiple scenarios to identify a high-productivity, improved quality-of-life roster
- Building a valid scenario takes 20–30 minutes for weekday rosters and 10–15 minutes for Saturday/Sunday rosters
- CrewOpt enabled BART to reduce their pay-to-platform ratio, estimated at more than 2.00, to 1.65 consistently, a reduction of 19%
- The improvement in the pay-to-platform ratio has been important in the context of the workforce shortage in the transit industry, allowing BART to do more with fewer resources
- Variation in starting times has also been reduced, with 24% fewer rosters having more than a 2-hour day-to-day variation, improving quality of life for BART’s train operators
GIRO’s support during HASTUS implementation was second to none, and they are fulfilling their commitment to provide HASTUS software for vehicle and crew scheduling that does exactly what BART needs. This was especially important during the COVID-19 period of so much uncertainty and rapid change.
John FitzGibbon, Manager Scheduling & Service Planning,
BART
