CrewVue allows for proactive management of the entire crew management process. The ability to foresee the future, determine what options are available, and the pending train delay, 12-18 hours in the future is a significant improvement over current processes.

CrewVue Functionality Overview

 Layoff Decision Support

How many are scheduled for vacations? What should the daily rate of compensated leave be?

These decisions are typically just a math calculation. CrewVue takes the projected train demand, adds a user-defined threshold, and calculates the appropriate number of engineers, conductors, foreman, etc. required to protect your needs of service. Automating this transaction them becomes as easy as querying CrewVue for Red, Yellow, or Green, and letting an IVR handle the rest.

Pre-approved layoff processing

The process of deciding to lay an employee off or not is part art, part data, and sometimes part luck.  The integration of layoff decision-making for controllable layoffs inside the CrewVue application will allow for further automation of the layoff process in your call centers.  Evaluating the current demand + a weighting factor at the crew population level, will allow for more transactions to be automated via automated systems OR for better decisions manually.  The days of 'I will allow you to mark off because I like you' are replaced with 'I can only give you 12 hours off at this point, because you are scheduled to work tomorrow at noon on the local' and 'I do not have enough employees to give you a personal day at this time.  You are slotted to protect a train and I do not have a single extra engineer at this point in time to spare.'

Projected Delay by Train/Crew District

The ability to accurately forecast train delay at the train/crew district level, allows users to make decisions before a train is in the terminal. If the lane supervisor can make decisions on trains that have little or no pressing commitment, allowing for higher priority trains to move through the terminal during periods of manpower shortages, the overall negaitve impact to your customers can be greatly reduced.

CrewVue provides the user with the following information:

Yard Jobs In Jeopardy

Identifying which jobs in the future are not going to be filled on time might seem like a simple proposition. The reality is, in a fluid rail environment, a job that is protected at noon can be unprotected less than two minutes later. Yard Jobs in Jeopardy keeps a continuous eye on the assigned jobs in the next 8 - 10 hours, providing proactive alerts when a job has the potentia of being blanked due to lack of manpower. Enabling your customers service team, your local manager, or even your crews on the ground to be in front of a potential industry issue goes a long way with maintaining a good relationship with your customers.

Current Manpower Analysis

Countless numbers of hours are spent determining the current number of engineers, conductors, etc. are available to run a transportation plan each day. Not only is this information critical during periods of temporary manpower shortages, it is also very important during times of surplus, allowing operating officers the ability to grant personal leave days, vacation days, and other types of compensated leave during periods of excess manpower.

Some reports avaiable via the CrewVue interface are:

Crew Surge Capacity

CrewVue Elasticity will show how many extra starts can be generated by crew corridor based upon existing supply and increasing demand incrementally.

When you slot crews against the demand, take the demand side, and increase the frequency by incremental percentages, 2% more, 4% more, etc.

Evaluate the supply of manpower against the new demand.

Determine the maximum crew capacity through the terminal, increasing the pool freight.

This Analysis should be executable and timer dependent. Providing an output for the user community to see surge capacity.

During the yard calling cycle, add a yard extra start

Allow the user to set the number of employees on the yard job, Foremand, Switchmen, Engineer or more

Run the manpower against the current supply while adding a yard extra in the next shift, then two, etc. or one each yard calling cycle.

Taking the demand as stable, randomly remove 1% of the active employees in the pools, yards, roads, etc.

How bad can the layoff rate be before the trains are no longer protected.

Allow the user to set the engineers or the trainmen as the issue, and slot the changing supply to demand

Increase the total time on duty by X % and slot those crews to the away from home terminal. How does this impact the away from home terminal.

Monitoring Of Crew Exceptions

Predictive 2nd Start Algorithm

The solution adds predictable capabilities to the process, which allows for the decision of whether to call the second crew to be made early in the process (Figure 3).  Specifically, this involves periodically assessing factors such as train movement, hours of service for the crew, train velocity, distance remaining, among other factors to dynamically calculate and forecast when a crew would time out.  In addition to the time-out period forecast, the solution includes automating the communication – via AVR, screen pops, or similar channels – of this forecast to appropriate parties (train dispatcher, crew management, corridor manager, etc.) so that recrew action can be taken/automated as soon as a time-out trigger is reached.

Predictive Overtime scheduling

Who is going to be working on overtime in the yard, short turns, etc.  Who will be going back to work with less than x hours.

Functional Modules

TrainHawk 'Tell me where this train will run into crew issues in the next 48 hours, call me if that delay is greater than X minutes."

Due to special commitments to customers, the operating team might want to watch 10 special trains and ensure no delays occur.  When a delay greater than X minutes occurs, the process will alert the appropriate consumer of the message of this exception.  This is especially important where missed commitments cost significant money.

LodgingVue ~ 'When are the projected stays greater than my supply of available rooms?  Given the projected demand for the next 24 hours, can I make reductions in my guarantees?' While attempting to lodge employees, special events, changes in the operations, etc. all create increased or decreased demand for lodging services.

Lodging facilities could subscribe to the information about who is projected to arrive at the lodging facility

Knowing earlier will allow the lodging vendor to ensure timely room availability and a larger escalation window if a problem is foreseen, allowing the operating team to react before employees are in the lobby waiting for rooms, losing rest, etc.

TransportVue 'How many taxi's do we need in the next 24 hours?' 'How many taxi's do we need in the next week based upon current traffic patterns?'  'Where are these trains expiring on their hours of service and where would rotating shuttles make sense?'

CrewVue Elasticity will show how many extra starts can be generated by crew corridor based upon existing supply and increasing demand incrementally.

IntelligentDH

Prevent deadheading home and away too late, by having CrewVue constantly monitor the balance of the crews in the territory.  Deadheading after paying penalty, or deadheading too late creating train delay is very expensive.

IntelligentDH functionality simply plans crew starts based upon existing demand at the other terminal.

IntelligentDH functionality simply plans crew starts based upon existing demand at the other terminal.

IntelligentDH functionality will make proactive suggestions based upon current information and allow the user to be engaged when required, preventing a great deal of mining for exceptions.

This process will allow the user to approve or deny suggestions from the system.

Deadheads will also be scheduled in adequate time frames to protect the pending traffic, increasing the planning window thus decreasing the delay due to late deadheads.

Manpower Adjustments

Calculate the number of pool turns needed to handle the traffic. Starts Projected during the next seven days

Regulation Factors

Protection overage

Crew Per Train Rate

Board Adjustment Recommendation

Automated the board cut via XML Schema

Notification Process

Real-time input of train schedule

Train ID

Train Schedule

Train Status

Crew District Expected Run

Delay/Non Delay

Expected Transit Time or Default

The demand forecast is based upon real-time information from your planned thru-freight schedule, yard job schedule, and assigned service

compare your real-time schedule against your typical lineup for day of week, week of year, etc.

The supply of employees will be based upon the real-time information available in your system as it stands today

The home terminal forecasted supply will allow users to increase traffic by a percentage, say 10% increase in traffic at this location, this pool, this terminal, etc and the reslot the employees to the demand.