After the realization of comprehensive measures (restructuring) to achieve the necessary competitiveness and market conformity in the operational areas for the bus as a mode of transport, the following question arose: How can the ambitious goals for the quality-of-service provision in the company be guaranteed given the limited personnel capacities?

Depot management system as an innovative IT system, which must be operationally/ technically linked and should generate a measurable economic benefit

For the disposition of the busses at the different depots, the introduction of a depot management system was examined, and a possible design of the functional scope was derived. The requirements for this project were high:

• Ensuring that processes at the depot are efficient
• Guarantee of an automatic optimization of the vehicle disposition by the BMS
• Comprehensive optimization of vehicle deployment via the depots
• Integration into the existing system landscape – with interfaces to both operational and technical systems
• Amortization of the depot management system with all cost and benefit effects, taking into account the specific service life of individual hardware and software components.

Due to the fact that no depot management system with all necessary and desired functionalities in practical application existed (and still exists), a comprehensive and critical analysis of the realistic possibilities of a future system design had to be found. In particular, the implementation of a vehicle location system that functions in the operational environment and guarantees the economic efficiency of the BMS was a great challenge.

The pitfalls of BMS system implementation lie in the precise task description and tracking of the target processes to be realized

In order to deposit the later realization of all requirements, a correspondingly exact specification sheet was worked out, which was concretized step by step in a specification sheet together with the system provider after the call for tenders and selection of bidders. Key elements of the development process in the creation of the requirement specification and functional specifications were the previously defined target processes for depot management, which had to be complied with. These defined processes at the depot were developed with the operatively responsible employees and critically reviewed and discussed in several loops.

The management of the overall process for the conception and introduction of a BMS, which took several years, required a differentiated project management, which had to ensure both the continuous updating of the economic efficiency and the tracking of possible technical and operational adjustments.

25. September 2014