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Transit Scheduling Systems Optimize Operations
No.6: Optimize Railway Operations with the TrueLine™

The core of the previous articles is the overview of transit planning, showing how all types of plans are linked for the execution of railway operation. We have seen how transit scheduling systems offer powerful support to the large-scale operations necessitated by increased urbanization, which can be extremely difficult for humans to accomplish it themselves, even with a certain amount of work experience. Therefore, when building railway infrastructure, primarily transit scheduling systems must be introduced to cover the required tasks for the transit plans.
To experience smooth operations, this article introduces TrueLine™, a transit scheduling system offered by Toshiba. All the benefits of Japan's renowned transit scheduling expertise are concentrated in this system.

TrueLine™ functions cover all transit scheduling tasks

The third service is personnel resource planning. The Crew Duty Editor utilizes basic timetables to produce crew routes and efficient crew duties while The Crew Rostering service produces crew work plans and ensures a sufficient number of crew members for all trains.
The fourth service, The Trainset Rostering, involves vehicle resource planning. This service formulates train reschedule plans and depot entry/exit routes for vehicle inspections and cleaning in depots. The Depot Work Scheduler creates inspection plans by taking into consideration the number of kilometers and days traveled to support stable and smooth vehicle operation.

Taken together, these services enhance the consideration and production of transit plans, ensuring both punctuality and safety. Furthermore, it is not necessary to purchase the solution for each function separately. Since TrueLine™ offers every solutions of transit scheduling system in one package. Having one package in hand means that it covered all functions of scheduling. This can also cut down the cost of interfaces between functions purchased from different providers.
The GIS Train Viewer service is excluded from transit scheduling part. Utilizing location information from various sources, including GPS, to determine whether trains are being correctly operated, this system allows for real-time monitoring of train locations on maps while recording the operation results.

All of these TrueLine™ services are integrated. For instance, it is possible to go back to the basic timetable and make some revisions if a crew member or a vehicle is unavailable, or to provide run result feedback from GIS operation monitoring into the basic timetable. Such user-friendly synergy allows more precise schedule generation.

Why TrueLine™ is the best choice?

While there are other transit scheduling systems, TrueLine™ is recommended for several reasons.
First, TrueLine™ is designed upon the direct experiences from users and the universal design. The software can be simply operated by a PC-mouse on the monitor that displays simplicity to the user. Its exceptional user-friendliness reduces the time needed for each task and productivity is improved.
The automatic AI function enhances efficiency by optimizing input resources. Based on the generated timetables, this function automatically determines operation feasibility by considering the company's number of vehicles and crew members in order to propose operation plans that fully exploit the resources.
To put it another way, the design of TrueLine™ not only supports transit scheduling but also enhances railway operations and improves productivity.

Since TrueLine™ is the cloud-based service model called Software as a Service (SaaS), it may be used anywhere without any dedicated devices or software. Of course, security is also ensured according to a determined standard. In addition, because it is a software package, initial system development costs are low. These two features eliminate the need to spend the large amounts of money that are often invested in design, development, and hardware installation as well as development costs incurred when adding new functions after installation.
Web application updates of TrueLine™ notify users of changes to its functions and revisions to existing functions. The software will be updated automatically and fixed any errors occurred. TrueLine™ can also support start-up companies who want better transit scheduling system with limited budget.
TrueLine™ supports 31 language internationally. Users can select their preferred language at any single devices. This makes the users in different countries, while trains operate across border, be able to have more flexibility to use different languages. Thus, one of the most outstanding features of TrueLine™ is the capability to convey Japanese know-how in transit scheduling to the users in their own languages.
It is also possible to consider TrueLine™ step by step. The user is offered to test the required services and see if the functions and performances fit with the company's work processes or not. Then, other functions can be added once users satisfy with the services.

When to introduce a new transit scheduling system, TrueLine™ always becomes a choice since its recognized functionality and ease of installation which make everyone want to try it out.