Success Story: How predictive analytics and IOT redefine Public Transportation

Most recently IGloble Software Solutions had a privilege to work with a leading Public State Transport Department in India to resolve its complex business issues. The department had been incurring heavy losses on it’s day to day operations for a long time.

To help the client resolve it’s business problems, IGloble consulted & devised a 3-Year roadmap to turn around the profitability curve. In our approach to dig deep down to the core problem, our team adopted following steps:-

1. Diagnostics — Detailed study of operational patterns in the last few years to identify anomalies & trends. This is done by virtue of primary as well as secondary data.
2. KPI Identification — This step encompasses the identification of relevant Key Performance Indicators (parameters) in the industry to set up targets.
3. Comparative Analysis — Comparing the present KPIs with those of best in class state transport system. This plays a pivotal role in determining the gaps & areas of improvement.
4. Solution Development — Based on a comparative study, an action plan is drafted to bring in technology intervention & address major issues.
5. Monitoring & Assessment — The set targets are continuously monitored using our platform, thus enabling stakeholders to assess improvement.

IGloble executed this plan of action using proprietary On-Board-Diagnostic(OBD) devices on transport buses & virtually connected them with the authority using its cloud-based solution. The technology intervention helped in determining the root causes. After analyzing the operational patterns, our team diagnosed multi-fold reasoning behind low profitability:-

• Driver Behavior- Aggressive driver behavior results in reduced KmpL, increased brake wear and vehicle breakdowns. This includes hard braking, sharp turns, overspeeding & abnormal gear shifts.
• Fuel Fleecing — Some state transport drivers have been found to indulge in malpractices such as fleecing fuel, thus leading to losses.
• Low Maintenance — With a large sized fleet it becomes tedious to keep a manual record of maintenance operations. Inconsistent maintenance leads to frequent vehicle breakdowns, leading to heavy losses & negative customer experience. Negative customer experience also leads to negative publicity, thus reducing prospective customers.

To address the above-mentioned factors our AI enabled platform assisted the management in decision making as follows:-

• Leveraging the power of Machine Learning Algorithms, our data science team determines a driver score which is unique function depending upon the frequency of hard brakes, sharp turns, overspeeding etc. and external factors like weather, terrain & vehicle conditions during the course of the journey
• IotaSmart platform enables the operators to track 400+ buses and geofence their routes i.e if the driver tends to deviate from prescribed route, an alert would be generated.
• Transport operators are continuously updated with maintenance alerts for predictive maintenance and fuel fleecing.

The results of the aforementioned steps have been remarkable as they help in solving not only business complexities but also helps the client achieve sustainable goals by reducing emissions. Some of the tangible & intangible benefits are as follows:-

• Enhancement in KMpL by 8.5%
• Reduction in fuel consumption of 2.5 Litres per Bus per Day
• Easier & Effective Asset Management

A lot of public and private state transport systems in India face the challenging tasks of maintaining profitability & sustaining optimal operations. We at IGloble strive to redefine the landscape of smart transportation.