Public transportation control: NimBus in airports and cities

In September 2017, Gurtam presented NimBus, a new solution for public transportation tracking. Five months have already passed, and partners can’t wait to share their practical experience in various fields: passenger transportation (cross-city lines and long-distance routes), housing and utility sector and even airport logistics. How NimBus applies to real-life projects, what functionality was used and what is needed for more complicated projects? Read our article to learn more.

Our partners told us about their projects and impressions of working with the new service by Gurtam. The first thing each of them mentioned is a handy interface:

• intuitive app navigation;
• quick creation of new schedules based on the older ones;
• “Depot” basic information on “Dashboard” page;
• line scheme for routes monitoring in real time; 
• predefined reports;
• prompts for users at every stage.

Go on reading, and you will learn more about the functionality and the special-purpose tools.

NimBus: take off

Our Dubai partner, Inbound company, uses NimBus to control passenger and staff transportation at the airport. The solution helps to track 250 units at 120 substandard routes regardless of the fact that there are no stopping points, addresses, and streets whatsoever.

“Previously, we used Wialon routes module to track our objects. But when it comes to 2,500 trips per day, NimBus processes the needed data only thus being faster and more stable”, says Walied Al Basheer, CEO and Founder, Inbound.

The dispatchers control route performance and connection status of the buses. After the shift is over, the service administrator makes the reports on drivers bound to the corresponding units in Wialon. It helps to estimate the actual working time and fairly calculate bonuses.

Up to 15,000 passengers, pilots, and engineers safely move around airport terminals every day.

NimBus: across the cities

NimBus is used pretty actively in the Ukrainian Vinnytsia. "EDI-TOUR" company connected 250 buses and created both cross-city lines and long-distance routes for them. The integrator uses NimBus in combination with Wialon thus offering the best of both solutions. In the former case, it is an easy work and special-purpose tools developed specifically for the dispatcher.  In the latter case: flexible reporting system and driver control.

Among NimBus benefits they mentioned:

• easy-to-understand interface: the user works with the service on an intuitive level. Only once, the administrator needed to use documentation to set "Depot" configuration;
• all kinds of emergencies are taken into consideration: the dispatcher marks the accident or the road maintenance in the program, creates the route with the detour, and continues tracking in a routine mode;
• real-time tracking: the dispatcher tracks the unit’s location on the map and in the "Linear" mode, thus knowing if the bus is late or no and its delay time.

The skill of making maximum use out of both solutions helped our partners to win the municipal Department of Housing, Utilities, and Amenities tender.

These are the results of the projects:

• NimBus entirely complies with the logic of dispatcher operations starting from a stop creation to report generation.
• The companies working with the projects in the passenger transportation sphere are willingly switching to NimBus and are ready to integrate the solution with third-party services.
• The integrator won the first municipal contract.

Current and planned developments

Studying every potential project, technical requirement, and forum post we were getting new ideas for NimBus improvement. After six hundred development hours we say that with every update NimBus becomes closer to becoming a one-stop solution for passenger transportation control. And it all happens with the assistance of our partners. These are the TOP features that appeared in NimBus due to the Gurtam community:

1. API for data integration and custom developments.
2. "Blocks" tab. Here you can create a chain of schedules that are executed successively by a driver for a specified time interval. Learn more about blocks in the documentation.
3. "Dashboard" page with dynamically-updated data on “Depot” elements. The user sees potential issues: wrong time settings, routes without schedules, rides without units.
4. Customization (White label). NimBus can be located on custom DNS. You can give another link to the user guide and change Gurtam Maps to WebGIS as in other Gurtam apps.
5. Passenger "Locator". The tool allows sharing NimBus data with users that are not authorized in the system.

We're always amazed by Wialon-based public transport management systems delivered by our partners. If you use NimBus, write about it at marketing@gurtam.com. We appreciate your ideas and want your success stories to inspire other members of the Gurtam community too.

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