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Vodafone


Call Centre Vodafone's Banbury Contact Centre is located at a remote business park, 5 miles South of Banbury's town centre. Several hundred staff, mostly from Banbury, work at the site, which has no public transport provision. Unemployment in Oxfordshire is low, resulting in strong competition to recruit and retain quality staff.

DRT Company Travel Plan
Vodafone started implementing its Company Travel Plan here in 2001, using initiatives including contracted Shuttle Buses for commuters. However, the fixed route solution adopted was deemed inefficient, especially at times of low demand, and a better solution sought. It was decided to provide a contracted minibus service working on a 'demand responsive' semi-fixed route basis.

Economic Operation
To ensure economic operation, an optimised set of vehicle schedules is progressively built-up by the LT software according to pre-defined rules. Some of the results noted in the first year of the scheme were
Increased patronage - approx 50%.
Reduced cost per journey ' approx 30%.
Reduction in the number of runs undertaken.
Positive environmental impact.
Faster journey times.


Web Based
To minimise call-centre costs, Logical Transport's 'enterprise edition' software was used to provide an Internet based booking system with real-time passenger scheduling and vehicle routing to provide immediate confirmation of booking requests. The LT solution is easy to use. Travellers place a request for travel via the Internet. Pick-up location and destination are quickly recalled and required arrival times stated. Within seconds, bookings are processed automatically and a travel confirmation generated. Telephone bookings can also be accommodated. Clients find the system simple to use, and have greater confidence in an arranged trip versus an ordinary bus. LT can design the user interface to suit local requirements.

Innovation Award
The scheme won the Association for Commuter Transport's 'Innovation' Award 2003.