Lewisham Keeps Coach and Minibus Services On Time
VT Duty Manager, a specially designed time system to aid in the smoother running of transport for special needs children and adults has been introduced at the London Borough of Lewisham. Using a combination of electronic time clocks, wall mounted TV sets where everyone at the Depot can see the daily work plan and who has or has not arrived for work, the system now forms part of the service's continuing improvement plan.
The London Borough of Lewisham through it's Door 2 Door service is involved in the safe transport by bus of special needs children to school each day. In addition, through it's Adult Services programme, people need to be brought to various centres e.g. day care and respite centres.
It’s important, therefore, for all concerned i.e. the parents, the bus drivers and special needs assistant, the school teacher, the care home staff and other service organisers, to know at all times as to what is happening. So for example, on occasions when a bus driver may not have arrived for his/her shift – the VisionTime Duty Manager will alert those in responsibility.
In addition VT Duty Manager is specially designed to allocate the working time and tasks of bus drivers and attendants.
Therefore, each this allows the driver & attendant to see what work is on hand - on large TV screens.
This is somewhat like how you would check flight times at an airport on monitors. 
VT Duty Manager allows the supervisor to :
- Work out, change & save the daily transport routes and to schedule Driver & Attendants to routes, tasks & shifts accordingly
- Match appropriate skills of Attendants to the children's or adults special needs. The system also calculates hours for payroll.
TV Displays have been installed in convenient locations so that Drivers and Special Needs Assistants and instantly see what work is on today, including
- the time that bus has to be at the various locations
- messages with special instructions
e.g. for the driver : maybe a certain type of bus needs to used for this route; or information about local conditions- perhaps a road is up;
for the special need assistant : perhaps he/she needs to bring certain apperatus or equipment; maybe a parent has just rang in to say the child is sick and so on...
Linked Story : The Door 2 Door service continually improves the quality of its bus stock - more here