Case Study: Victoria Coach Station, London
Part of the ACIS business has a specific focus on passenger terminals.
In 2000 ACIS was awarded the contract to supply the EPI system for London Victoria Coach Station. The contract was won in open European competition. The system was constructed over a six-month period and subsequently has been extended and enhanced in this major facility and is presently planning a technology refresh.
Europe's busiest coach terminal Victoria Coach Station, operated by a division of TfL, is the busiest facility of its kind in Europe. Each year Victoria Coach Station handles 190,000 arrivals and departures to and from 1050 destinations across Europe. It is akin to a major airport operation and the level of customer service is correspondingly high. BIDS (Bus Information Display System) is a mission-critical system for Victoria Coach Station and plays a vital role in the smooth running of the facility, both public facing and in the back office.
Project challenges
The main challenges in this project were:
- To deliver a solution that would serve the needs of three quite distinct groups within the Victoria Coach Station business i.e. the operational, administrative and IT systems departments. This demanded careful analysis of existing systems and procedures in order to capture the requirements leading to a detailed implementation specification.
- To provide timetable management facilities that would cope with the large number of Operators with related diversity of data formats and complexity of operating patterns and which would also deliver productivity aids and decision support for users in order to streamline previously laborious tasks.
- To deliver software tools that would streamline the operational planning process for the space-constrained Victoria Coach Station site.
- To develop and deploy a sophisticated and complex billing, invoicing and reporting system in a safe manner recognising that this component of the system is mission-critical, being responsible for the considerable Victoria Coach Station revenue.
System Facilities at a glance
- System deployed in both Arrivals and Departure terminals
- Modern, open platform, client-server architecture
- 70 high-resolution displays in concourses and at boarding gates
- Ticket desk displays
- Vehicle movement logging
- Intelligent stand allocation
- Charging and invoicing system
- Management reporting system
- Hand held data capture terminals
- Links to major coach operator NEG
- Integration with TfL SAP accounts system
System parameters
Annual coach movements > 200,000
Annual passengers > 10 million
Number of Operators 50
Number of destinations 1,600 including 400 in mainland Europe
Timetable Data Management
The system has a comprehensive timetable management suite that comprises both original timetable creation and data import.
Victoria Coach Station staff use the system to create a master seasonal timetable for all operators, routes and destinations aided by the productivity features which are a significant feature of BIDS.
Data import facilities are provided for those Operators who are able to provide data in electronic format. This includes specialised support for the preferred formats for particular operators such as NEG.
The master seasonal timetable includes support for complex operating patterns and contains powerful Conditions and Exceptions logic to support the generation of journey exceptions for such as bank holidays.
Each night BIDS automatically generates a daily operational schedule, which is the basis for passenger information and movement data capture.
Passenger Information
Information is provided for passengers on XVGA displays located in the concourses and at each boarding gate. Information is specific to location and managed by the BIDS system on a fully automated basis but with the option for intervention as and when required.
Communications and protocols
The display clients access the SQL database to retrieve data for display in accordance with rules contained within the Template SQL. This allows every display to have independent behaviour in terms of frequency of update, display rules etc.
TCP/IP is used throughout.
XML is employed in data import / export functions.
Display information management
Display layout is controlled within a Proforma and Template system, which allows flexible and dynamic display usage. Business rules are to optimise the use of precious display space.
The 'dynamic look-ahead period' feature allows a fixed number of display lines to be defined across multiple displays, where the system will dynamically recalculate the look-ahead period required to fill all available lines. For alpha listing this feature allows for an optimum distribution of departures across displays, rather than having fixed alphabetic ranges and different look-ahead periods (or number of departure lines) on each display.
Listing displays are be configured to show only the next 'n' (normally one) departures to each destination (optionally by each Operator) within a maximum time window. This type of configuration has the benefit that frequently served destinations are not displayed repeatedly at the expense of other destinations (that may occur later in time, and would otherwise be excluded due to the availability of display lines). This feature is used with a dynamic look-ahead to provide an optimised 'Next Departure by Destination (+operator)' display.
Content includes a data entity within the database. Support is included for graphics and full motion video.
All coach movements are recorded within the EPI system by Registration, Service, Time, Operator, Bay etc. The resulting data set forms the basis of charge calculation and also for use in management reporting.
ACIS worked closely with Victoria Coach Station operational personnel to create a user interface that would assist accurate movement recording whilst optimising and minimising data entry. Space is at a premium in Victoria Coach Station so time in and out of the station are recorded for every vehicle, as are time on and off stand or layover bay.
Intelligent Stand Planning and Allocation
The restricted footprint of the Victoria Coach Station terminal, and the ever growing traffic, create a real challenge to efficient operation of the facility. ACIS used its extensive international airports experience to provide Victoria Coach Station staff with tools to optimise use of departure stands including clash detection and decision support. This has greatly streamlined a process that used to take many hours.
Wireless PDA helps marshalling staff
A special version of the EPI staff workstation client was developed to allow marshalling staff to use handheld terminals to record arrivals movement data.
NEG links
Seasonal Import
Seasonal timetable data is imported from files supplied by NEG. This data is imported into the BIDS services and timetables data, from where it is used to generate operational departures and arrivals on a daily basis. This import is typically performed twice a year for the winter and summer seasons.
Export of real time data from BIDS to NX
Actual times of arrivals/departures and registrations are exported daily to the National Express FTP site using XML. This data is primarily used to register actual vehicle arrivals at Victoria Coach Station.
Real time connection with NEG OCS
Discussions with NEG are ongoing in relation to this interconnection between our systems, which in due course will allow real time updates on passenger screens for all NEG services.
Charging system
The BIDS Charging System is responsible for Victoria Coach Station revenues from coach operations, and as such is a mission critical system.
Owing to the diversity of Operators and Services, flexibility is a key attribute of the charge calculation system and ACIS collaborated with Victoria Coach Station MIS staff to adapt its billing system (originally designed for the airport environment) to create an environment specifically suited to the great variety of contract structure and terms.
The system generates invoices to Operators; detailing coach movements by registration, time in and out, parking, duplicates, penalty stay etc.
Interface with TfL SAP
BIDS is interfaced with TfL's SAP system so that invoices are ported directly into TfL's ledger systems complete with VAT and nominal analysis.
Management Reporting
A powerful reporting database is provided within BIDS for VCS management. Embedded reports are included within individual client applications, fully customised to the specific requirements of each.
Maintenance
ACIS provides support and maintenance services to VCS with one-hour response and eight-hour fix. System availability has consistently exceeded 99.99%