hytech: Our Technologies

Maintenance Manager

Planners plan the service, dispatchers keep it operating smoothly, drivers run the routes, and the maintenance depart-ment is responsible to ensure the fleet is prepared to meet the demand.

This is not only a challenging job, but one that’s critical to the safety of the drivers, passengers, and the communities you serve. This job is also riddled with constant interruptions and unexpected failures that cause you to always be dynamically adapting your team to keep things running.

Avail understands this, because we’ve spent thousands of hours in the trenches of transit operations; including working hand-in-hand with maintenance managers and their teams. In doing so, we have seen first-hand that the maintenance man-ager’s needs are often overlooked when a property procures a CAD/AVL solution, even though the system contains a great deal of information that could benefit them as well.

MyAvail solves this problem by pushing the data maintenance needs, to be at their fingertips, so they to can leverage the benefits of CAD/AVL to provide better service.

This includes:

• Handheld devices that automatically upload the entered data of vehicles locations within the yard
• A configurable alert system that tells you when vehicles are having issues that need addressed, through desktop alerts, text messaging and emails
• A filterable “at a glance” view of your entire fleet to identify trends and operational issues, thus avoiding down-time
• Geographic displays of where issues occurred, to better understand what may be causing them
• And more!
  
  

System Admiinistrator/IT

Avail has taken IT support to a whole new level of automation by not only monitoring socket connections, applications statuses, and data throughput, but also being able to “self heal” most of the things causing those problems. The built in functionality of the MyAvail—System Administrator/IT application can:

• Automatically reboot your servers
• Stop and restart stalled applications
• Reboot routers and switches
• Reboot communications gateways at the radio tower
• Inform you of trends in CPU usage that could cause problems
• And much, much more! Does this mean I never have to touch my system again?

No, there are problems the system can’t fix automatically that will still require human intervention. But, the system will text or email you when those situations arise, and you can simply log into the system via your desktop computer, Smartphone or tablet PC, regardless of where you are, and do any additional troubleshooting that may be required.

But don’t worry; you won’t be alone. The Avail support department will also receive those alerts and will most likely be investigating and solving the problems for you.

That’s Going The Extra Mile!

Planner/Scheduler

Developing effective and accurate schedules is the foundation for success in every public transit operation throughout the nation. However, all of us who have been in the industry, also understand that doing so is as much of an art, as it is a science.

It doesn’t matter if you’re using an automated run cutting program or doing it by hand, it’s a lot of work and MyAvail Planner/Scheduler is there to help you every step of the way.

We can’t possibly explain the incredible power of this tool through this slick sheet, so we’ve simply touched on just a few of the fea-tures it has, to give you an idea of how MyAvail can help you be more productive.

When creating schedule data MyAvail:

• Provides effective and easy to use data entry through tables, as well as a map based user interface
• Imports data from third party programs
• Automatically runs validation checks to ensure data integrity
• Allows multiple people to work on the data at the same time
• Provides an audit trail for any and all changes
• Automatically creates stop based trigger boxes used for sched-ule adherence and automatic stop annunciation systems

Once the data is entered, MyAvail will:

• Analyze predicted performance then alert the planner to potential problems
• Manage the “publish” of new schedules
• Automatically download all required files to each vehicle
• Keep you informed of any publish issues through the customizable planner Dashboard

Then once the new schedule is in service, MyAvail:

• Monitors actual performance of the fleet including: schedule adherence, route adherence, dwell times, announcement issues, and more
• Automatically reports all issues to the planner via the planners dashboard and desktop alert system
• Shows the planner where the issues are, what’s causing them, and then recommends the required changes to address them
• If the planner agrees with the changes, the system will automatically incorporate the changes and prepare a schedule update, which again is automatically deployed

Dispatcher

Being a dispatcher in a public transit operation is an extremely challenging and dynamic job. Dispatcher duties include:

• Making sure all pieces of work for the day are covered
• Checking in drivers
• Handling morning pullout
• Being the focal point of voice communications
• Coordinating road supervisors
• Interfacing with maintenance to handle vehicle issues
• Supporting customer service representatives
• And solving any other service based issues that arise throughout the day

Given this already demanding job, the last thing a dispatcher needs to be bothered with is scouring over data and monitoring vehicle screens, to see if there are any other items to be concerned about.

Yet it’s the dispatcher’s job to make sure they have everything accounted for, so what's the alternative? Simple, the alternative is MyAvail—Dispatch!

Just like an extension of the dispatcher themselves, MyAvail—Dispatch knows exactly what should happen at every moment of the day, and how one thing can affect another if it doesn’t happen as planned.

With this built-in knowledge and the internal data mining engine that’s unique to Avail, MyAvail watches the day unfold for the dispatcher, allowing them to handle the more dynamic human-to-human interfaces. Then, MyAvail proactively alerts dispatch when something happens—or doesn't happen—that could cause them problems, if not addressed. The benefits of this industry changing paradigm are too numerous to mention here, so please contact Avail to hear more about MyAvail—Dispatch and how it can help you to...Enhance Your Riders Experience!

Fare Collection

Avail is leveraging over two decades of ITS industry knowledge to provide Fare collection solutions, where the emphasis is more on the data and analysis capabilities of the fare collection, and less on automatic bill and coin validation. The Avail system provides more advanced data collection than the industry standard validating farebox, and a reporting and data analysis feature unlike any you’ve seen before.

Avail offers a variety of system configurations to meet the needs of all customers, including features like:

• Contactless smartcards for cashless payment
• Stop level reporting of fares collected
• Point of sale for fare media
• Wireless upload of collected data
• GPS based replay of each vehicles travels including: schedule adherence, dwell times, etc.
• And much, much more!

This solution provides the ability for the agency to support both cash and cashless systems, utilizing industry standard equipment and processes to provide additional value to the riding public. Providing the public with additional methods of payment, while reducing the agencies need for printed tickets, will provide a return on investment related to the size of each agency.

If you are more concerned about making your fare collection system work for you versus validating the collected bills then give Avail a call to discuss what we can do for you!

• Bright color TFT 3.5”
• Front face provides contactless target
• Illuminated color ring indicates transaction status
• Digital audio – High quality audio, including voice messages
• Contactless Reader supports ISO 14443 Types A, B and C
• Fully programmable user interface
• Multi-language support

Vehicle Data Router

Avail’s concept inside the vehicle, is no different than with our software on the backend... make it work for the customer!

As a leading systems integrator of ITS technologies in public transit for more than a decade, Avail knows just how important it is for our customers to have ease of use, coupled with expandable capabilities.

New technologies are emerging everyday, in every market, and public transit is no different. As these technologies emerge, you don’t want to be stuck integrating separate devices for every new feature you need to add; you want to easily share common resources, without worrying about how you’re going to make it work.

For in-vehicle technologies, that’s the Avail Vehicle Data Router!

Simply stated, the Avail Vehicle Data Router gives you a single wireless portal into all devices on your vehicle which have the capability of exchanging data.

But Avail also knows that funneling all the data that’s available to you on the vehicle, through a single wireless pipe, is only as good as your capability to make use of that data on the backend. To solve that problem, Avail also provides software on the backend that allows you to seamlessly request data from, and send data to, each of the independent systems throughout your operations via our Data Portal. Sound like a good idea?

Give us a call and lets discuss how technology consolidation can give you the bang for the buck you’ve been looking for.