Warrington’s Own Buses is an independent bus operator which has been operating since 1902, serving communities in Warrington and surrounding areas.

With a fleet of 118 buses, carrying over 6 million passengers per year, and covering approximately 5 million kilometres per annum, they needed easily accessible and accurate data to inform their improvement plans.

The challenge

As part of running the operation and measuring performance, the team at Warrington’s Own Buses were manually collating data from several systems across the business to gather basic information on their operational KPIs.

Collating the information from a number of different reports was time intensive, there was an increased risk of error, and had the potential to impact data integrity. They needed a solution that enabled them to have easy access to the management information and confidence that it would be accurate.

“Generating management reports involved a lot of manual work and it wasn’t just one person in the business undertaking this, a number of team members were doing the same task for different reasons. It wasn’t a smart way to work, taking up a vast amount of hours which would have been better spent on managing the business rather than on collecting data.”

Katie Cringle, Operations Director, Warrington’s Own Buses

 

Why EPM?

Warrington’s Own Buses, an existing customer using EPM and Omnibus solutions, selected EPM’s Insights platform to overcome the challenges they faced with data and reporting.

“I like the responsiveness of EPM and Omnibus, they strive to go above and beyond. They are always looking to evolve and meet customers’ needs, we were impressed with the Insights software and were confident it would provide us with the management reporting we needed quickly in an easy-to-use platform.”

Katie Cringle, Operations Director, Warrington’s Own Buses

 

The solution

EPM worked closely with Warrington’s Own Buses to develop a suite of dashboards specific to their requirements, covering a wide range of their business operations, drawing the data from their existing EPM and Omnibus systems.  Each dashboard provides insight into an area of their business, and where appropriate, the dashboards allow them to drill down into the detail.

Areas covered include:

• Passenger numbers and revenue
• Lost mileage
• Customer feedback
• Driver absences, interviews, and disciplinaries
• Accidents

The data is refreshed multiple times a day, ensuring it is always up to date, with no involvement required from the team at Warrington’s Own Buses. The dynamic reporting capabilities enable them to interrogate data and investigate the root causes of any identified issues.

 

Implementation process

The implementation process allowed for a seamless transition of data from the multiple reports on various systems into the Insights platform. Workshops were undertaken with key stakeholders to ensure their requirements were met with the final output.

 

The results

Warrington’s Own Buses now has complete visibility of the data from across their network which has improved integration between departments, allowing them to drill down into the data and determine root causes. The platform is used daily across the business to monitor and review performance, having the capability to spot trends and patterns has enabled them to make immediate decisions and put interventions in place where necessary.

Gathering data to create progress reports was time-consuming, but with Insights they have the information available immediately, saving them valuable time each week which they can now use to focus on other areas of the business.

“We all strive for the same metrics and Insights has allowed us to quickly assess the KPIs across different departments. Having complete visibility across the business has led us to work more collaboratively and ensure we’ve all got the same understanding of what the drivers are for the metrics. The platform provides us with the knowledge we need to make informed decisions and drive improvements across the operation.”

Katie Cringle, Operations Director, Warrington’s Own Buses

 

The future – working in partnership

Warrington’s Own Buses is working closely with EPM on reviewing their dashboards, understanding what other requirements they have, and how we can increase value and evolve the platform further.