If you run a bus transport company then you will need bus transport software. Bus transport software enables you to manage your passengers, book trips, allocate vehicles to the right journeys at the right time and optimise your fleet management. It doesn’t matter if you’re a commercial bus company or community transport provider or provide direct public transport, you will need some form of system to manage everything.
So what would you expect to see from bus transport software?
Features of Bus Transport Software
Pickup and Drop Off Points
Any bus transport software would need to map your pickup and drop off points accurately. It would need to pin to the exact locations being picked up from and dropped off at. In reality just saying you drop people off at a hospital doesn’t help if you need to drop them off at a specific ward. You’d be surprised just how much extra distance is added dropping someone off at a different location at the same hospital can add. The pickup and drop off points dictate where the journey starts and stops for the passenger.
Fleet Management
Not only should bus transport software inform you of your vehicle availability, it should also manage when the vehicle requires servicing or checks. All information relating to the vehicle and it’s history needs to be stored to ensure you meet compliance and that the vehicle is indeed road worthy. This would include things like mileage and distance travelled, odometer readings and fuel types along with registrations and the type of licence required to drive the vehicle too. You also need to ensure in the bus transport software that only the available vehicles show up to be booked when required. This saves loads of time checking journey logs!
Route Management
Bus transport software will also need to manage your routes. Not only fixed routes but ad-hoc routes too. It also needs to take into account last minute changes to the route too! For example a passenger or student might need to be dropped off somewhere else or a group might change their pickup location at the last minute due to road works. The software needs to be easy to use in order to change the route at a moments notice and recalculate any additional mileage and fees at the click of a button.
Alerts and Reminders
The software would need to provide alerts to important actions which need to be taken. This might be reminders about your drivers or vehicle records, journeys still pending a driver or simple policy updates. Bus transport software needs to be able to allow you to keep your eye on things without taking up too much of your time in the process.
Finance and Invoicing
The key to your bus service success is to bring in your costs for providing your transport services. Bus transport software must include easy to use invoicing and payment capture processes so that you can easily bring in the payments from your passengers. It doesn’t matter what the vehicle is, whether it’s a minibus or coach, but having the capabilities to handle finance is a must!
Why not take a look at some features provided by Road XS here.
