SOUTH CAROLINA ’ S
GREENLINK
MANAGES ITS WITH
EQUANS
The agency Created in 1974 and operated by South Carolina ’ s City of Greenville , Greenlink is responsible for 12 fixed routes covering destinations all across Greenville County . Whether traveling to work , school or a medical appointment , Greenlink ’ s goal is always to provide its ridership with a safe , convenient and affordable transportation option . However , according to James Keel , executive director of Greenlink , when he joined the team in December of 2015 , he was immediately struck by the scale of work needed to bring the agency into the 21st century . “ I knew that over time we would need a significant overhaul ,” Keel said . “ What was driving a lot of the thought process at the time was dealing with same-day changes , driver shortages , what happens if you don ' t have enough drivers , what kind of modifications can you make to your blocking or scheduling without disrupting rider ’ s experience . A lot of that thought really went into the scope of work and how we were going to be able to provide better customer service .” Since 2015 , the agency has made significant changes including the development of a new operations and maintenance facility , the deployment of electric buses , and upgrading over 300 bus stops in the system . But Greenlink wasn ’ t ready to stop there .
The partnership In the summer of 2022 , the agency put out an RFP seeking a complete reconstruction of its Intelligent Transportation System ( ITS ). “ What we were really trying to do is figure out how to get better information in order to make clearer , data-driven decisions ,” Keel said . “ When we went to market , there were several different CAD /
AVL vendors that came to the table . Ultimately , what drove us to EQUANS was their vast experience in solving a lot of the problems that we had just started encountering over the past couple of years .” EQUANS ' s Intelligent Transport Systems ( ITS ) and CAD / AVL suite named NAVINEO has been designed specifically for public transit operators whose personnel work with real-time transportation management tools to ensure and improve communication between their fleet and drivers . Its function is to make bus operations more fluid , from the dispatching of vehicles , in order to guarantee optimal management of daily operations , reduce costs and ensure seamless communication with passengers . EQUANS ' s CAD / AVL System is fully mobile , as staff can access it from a tablet or a smartphone . “ EQUANS partners with cities as large as Paris , which has 4,000 buses . We work with many large cities including Dubai , Brussels , Geneva , andQuebec City , which has 700 buses in its fleet ,” said Kilian Ollivier , Director of Business Development for EQUANS . “ Comparatively , Greenville is 26 buses , but it works just as well and is configurable for any size agency to be equally effective .” The combined system of Computer-Aided Dispatch ( CAD ) and Automatic Vehicle Location ( AVL ) offers the advantage of optimizing service performance , increasing reliability and enhancing passenger safety . Supervisory personnel can manage vehicles using connected devices and respond to field disruptions by creating detour or canceling trips . After accepting EQUANS ' s proposal , the two companies quickly got to work putting together a detailed scope of work , implementing ideas often seen in much larger transit systems such as ensuring that APCs were statistically validated in order to track average passenger trip
16 | BUSRIDE . COM | APRIL / MAY 2024