II/2004 - Mentz Datenverarbeitung GmbH

Day Specific Planning with DIVA
Day specific planning is used very differently
by the individual transport operators.
Some DIVA users cannot offer services
according to the scheduled timetable
on 80% of all operating days due to
road works, exhibitions, etc. Naturally,
these changes in the timetable must be
planned and communicated to the passenger.
Actually, day specific planning is nothing
special. Through the definition of a service
calendar, each calendar day is allocated
to a day type. However, this can
get very complicated for the user.
Additionally, a large portion of the data
must be redundantly entered and saved.
The amount of data to be entered
increases greatly with an increase in the
number of routes. If, for example, on
one day a route serves another route
option due to road works, a new day
type must be created for this calendar
day. The planning during road works is
carried out in the new day type. The problem
with this: many other lines must be
copied into the new day type. You can
imagine what happens if two lines have
separate road works deviations that
timely overlap.
The planning of a route group
should be possible without influencing
other route groups. In a
route group, all routes that
change are pooled. Within a
route group, all blocks are consistent.
For the first time, this is solved in
DIVA through the introduction of a
calendar per route group. In this
calendar only special occasions
concerning the route group are
defined. The calendar of one
route group does not influence
the calendar of the other route
group.
This solution sounds trivial but
has serious consequences for
the DIVA program and its users.
How are calendars per route
group to be exported to VDV
compatible systems such as AVL
systems and passenger counting
systems? Especially these interfaces
are an important part of the
DIVA system and were, amongst
others, responsible for the success
of DIVA in the last years.
This is possible through the introduction
of a network-wide valid
service calendar that can be
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used, for example, for the VDV export.
The calendars that are defined for each
individual route group must be mapped
on this network-wide service calendar.
And how should the duty schedule
work? The duty schedule does not know
any route groups. The calendar of the
duty schedule must work for several
route groups. Often a reduced or extended
calendar is necessary for duty scheduling,
for example because services
are not planned in the timetable schedule
but are only defined as secondary
service in the duty schedule. Therefore,
in DIVA the calendar of the duty schedule
can be extended and modified, based
on the service calendar of the timetable
schedule.
For the publication of timetable data for
the passenger, day type specific data is
mostly not of interest. If all details of day
specific planning would be presented,
for example in a stop timetable, the passenger
would drown in footnotes. In order
to keep the stop timetable readable, the
data are normally smoothed out. Therefore,
in DIVA it is also possible to define
a special calendar for publication purposes.
Day specific planning can basically be
performed following three different strategies:
1. The service calendar is identical with
the calendars of the route groups.
This is a wise strategy for smaller
operators with few routes.
2. A calendar is defined per route group.
The service calendar is defined in
such way that on the one hand all
route groups can be scheduled exactly
and on the other hand as few day
types as possible are created in the
service calendar. This strategy is useful
if a restriction on the number of
day types in the consuming systems
(AVL, passenger counting, etc) exists
which excludes the third strategy.
This is the case for most operators.
3. Parallel to the second strategy, a
calendar per route group is defined.
The network-wide valid service calendar
is defined on a 365 day types per
year basis. This is a sensible strategy
when more than one operator is planned
in a timetable schedule. This
strategy implies that the consuming
DIVA Graphic Schedule enables the handling of overall day types in the new days of operation concept. The program sh