Hertfordshire County Council wished to analyse the current provision within the county for the services it funds for transport of:
- Special Educational Needs (SEN) students to educational settings
- Adults travelling to visit day care centres
Transport services are operated with a combination of Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) vehicles, private minibuses, private taxis, and Dial-a-Ride services.
Using Maploom we created a series of maps and tables summarising the more than 13,000 routes serviced across the county per week. By visualising and analysing the existing provision, cost savings were identified through identifying the inefficient routes and identifying opportunities to optimise routes.
We developed approaches for route optimisation through “dual use” of HCC vehicles, by extending the use of HCC vehicles to commence earlier in the morning for school drop offs, it was shown to be possible to combine these services with their regular day centre drops which occur later in the morning. The reorganisation of routes identified by Maploom could lead to £100Ks savings for the county each year.
Maploom is being further developed to provide an API and as a “self-service” platform enabling the query of particular routes, contracts, destinations (days centres, schools etc) or individual passengers.
Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash