As a transit leader, staying on top of your fleet’s unique safety risks — stops and starts, dense routes, interactions with passengers — can be challenging. Without accurate data, it’s difficult to know how or where to improve. Enter the modern, AI-powered bus fleet management system. With this type of technology, transit leaders have the visibility they need to improve fleet safety, productivity, and efficiency. All at once.
What is a bus fleet management system?
A bus fleet management system is an AI-powered operations platform used to track and monitor buses and other vehicles in a transit system. Transit leaders use this software to track fleet vehicles; monitor driver behavior; assess traffic conditions in real time; and even gather fuel and maintenance data.
Benefits of bus fleet management software
Safer drivers, passengers, and communities
It doesn’t matter if you’re managing a university, regional, or school bus system: Fleet safety is always a priority. But to keep passengers safe, you need visibility into what’s happening in and around your buses. Passengers may be rowdy or disruptive, distracting the driver and endangering others. Or, there may be accidents as passengers get on and off.
With a fleet management system, you can identify risky driving behaviors and alert drivers to them quickly. These systems make it easy to track what’s happening inside the bus, on the road, and around the vehicle. Reliable video evidence supports driver coaching and can help exonerate drivers from blame in an accident. It can also help lower the risk of costly litigation.
[Insurance companies] can see everything. It makes it a whole lot easier on everybody, and it moves the process along. Once they see that we have dash cams, there’s usually no litigation at all. We no longer have people tied up trying to do investigations or managing false claims.
A more productive transit system
Bus fleet management software isn’t just for safety. The same technology also makes your team’s day-to-day work easier and the transit system more efficient. For example, you can use the platform to:
- Prevent downtime. Monitor every aspect of your operations, using tools like automated maintenance scheduling reminders and customized vehicle inspection forms to catch maintenance issues early and keep vehicles on the road. For example, if a bus flashes a fault code, you can see the exact code, by vehicle, in your fleet dashboard, enabling you to address urgent maintenance issues.
- Always know where your fleet is. A bus fleet management system lets you easily locate every vehicle in your fleet, in real time. If an accident or a breakdown happens, you have the data you need to intervene right away, keeping your drivers and passengers safe and on time.
- Collaborate smoothly. Collaboration is easier when every team works from the same source of truth. Integrated fleet management software gives maintenance, operations, and safety teams access to one, unified dashboard, showing real-time data for every vehicle. With the same information in front of them, teams can move quickly, make confident decisions, and keep the fleet running at its best.
Improve sustainability and reduce your environmental impact
Transit fleet software can also make your fleet more sustainable. Consider these benefits:
- Reduce fraud with a fleet card. When you have a fleet card program, you gain visibility and control over fleet spending. AI-powered integrated operations platforms like Motive offer a fleet card, so you can manage safety, operations, and spend in one place.
- Improve fuel economy and reduce emissions. Fleet management systems provide data on important vehicle activity, like idling. You can then identify drivers who idle excessively and coach them on more efficient habits.
- Reduce your maintenance costs. Use telematics data to identify behaviors that increase wear and tear on your buses and other transit vehicles. Then coach drivers with those habits so that you can reduce these behaviors and improve the lifespan of your vehicles.
Features to look for in the best bus fleet management systems
What are must-have features in a bus fleet management system? The features below create a strong foundation for a safer, more reliable, more efficient fleet:
- Dash cams. Dash cams are at the core of driver safety. The most effective ones provide high-definition (HD) video footage of both the driver and the road, giving managers clear visibility into high-risk driving behaviors affecting the fleet. The Motive AI Dashcam detects about 15 safety events — including cell phone use, close following, and hard braking — issuing real-time alerts so drivers can correct unsafe habits on the spot. The same video footage can be used to exonerate drivers from wrongful blame after an incident.
- Omnicams. Motive’s AI Omnicam provides 360° visibility around every vehicle. When paired with the AI Dashcam, the Motive camera system gives fleets up to six camera angles and unprecedented visibility into everything that happens.
- Tracking. Bus fleet management systems use GPS tracking to identify the precise location of every vehicle in the fleet. Look for technology that syncs back to a centralized dashboard to track vehicles in one place. Real-time GPS fleet tracking makes it easy to understand traffic conditions, which drivers are on schedule, and when to expect delays.
- Telematics. Fleet telematics monitor fleet health, including fuel, emission levels, and time spent on site, all mapping back to the fleet dashboard, so that you can improve operational efficiency.
- Maintenance. Optimize more than safety with integrated maintenance tools, like inspection reports, automated reminders, and service notes and history.
- Fleet card. Fleet cards that pay for fuel and other expenses cut costs and reduce fraud. Look for a fleet card like the Motive Card that’s integrated with your bus fleet operations platform, so you can manage everything in one place.
- Complete visibility. Managing operations in silos wastes time and decreases productivity. Look for bus fleet management software that integrates safety with spend, maintenance, and compliance for complete visibility.
3 examples of how Motive supports bus and transit systems
See how three transit companies like yours are using the Motive Integrated Operations Platform to keep their communities and drivers safer.
Groome Transportation’s safety team is 4x as efficient.
Groome Transportation, a large transportation provider, wanted to improve safety and efficiency as the business grew. Groome needed something more accurate and reliable than what their original dash cams provided. Now, Motive’s AI-powered safety platform supercharges their safety department and drives company-wide ROI. With it, they can reduce claims, get in front of accident prevention, improve driver performance, and most importantly: keep all of their passengers safe.
Aspen School District improves safety for drivers, students, and the community.
Aspen School District’s director of transportation, Reghan Mahaffey, describes the typical daily challenges for school bus drivers: “Our drivers have to drive safely through traffic, with people on their phones, swerving into their lane, and under tough weather conditions. There’s also student behavior to worry about. There’s a lot to handle.”
Aspen’s previous bus fleet management system didn’t detect safety events or provide clear video footage. With Motive, Mahaffey and her team have a full view of everything happening in the fleet. “Motive gives us a more complete view of what’s actually happening on the road with our drivers and our vehicles,” she says. “Now I have one solution to handle telematics, driver coaching, video and maintenance.”
Having bus diagnostics in Motive gives Mahaffey confidence that she can keep drivers and passengers safe. “Now, our mechanics can actually pull the engine fault codes right from Motive, quickly determine what’s happening and then tell the driver exactly what to do to stay safe,” she says. “Motive has given us the ability to make clearer, more immediate decisions. And it’s given me a lot more confidence as a manager when our drivers and buses are far from campus,” she says.
Dreamliner Coaches operates at a higher level with Motive.
Dreamliner Coaches, the largest tour bus operator in the entertainment industry, wanted an integrated bus fleet management platform to manage their fleet of high-end buses and keep drivers, clients, and the company safe. Before using Motive, they only used electronic logging devices. When accidents happened, they didn’t find out until the driver called in to report one. They wanted to have insights and data in hand to make real-time decisions, rather than reacting after the fact.
Dreamliner General Manager Mike Ragan explained the transformation with Motive. He says, “Motive AI Dashcams allow us to keep our drivers and customers safe. They’ve been pivotal in raising our drivers’ level of awareness and making us a more professional fleet.”
Dreamliner’s teams are able to work more efficiently, too. For example, the leasing department uses Motive Fleet View to track their vehicles in one place and doesn’t have to call the safety department for details. “Motive has helped us a lot with our different departments being able to work together better,” Ragan said.
Transit is safer, more productive, and more profitable with Motive
Manual and siloed systems for bus fleet management don’t make sense in today’s fast-paced world. As a transit leader, you know the complexities of managing your fleet’s operations. You need powerful, effective, and connected solutions to lead effectively.
Modern, AI-powered bus fleet management systems like Motive’s put real-time insights at your command.
