Transdev

Transdev has operated 30% of Melbourne’s metropolitan bus network on behalf of Public Transport Victoria (PTV) since August 2013. The Melbourne bus business integrates over 1,200 employees, 47 routes and over 500 vehicles, which cover both urban and school services including the high patronised Smart Bus routes that provide orbital services connecting Melbourne’s middle ring suburbs.

The Challenge

Transdev was seeking to consolidate group communications to a centralised control room, with a view to improving driver safety and service delivery. The critical communications system needed to provide the ability to reliably and consistently manage a diverse range of call types, including high priority duress.

Due to the public service nature of the Transdev operations, the new communication solution needed to be delivered with minimal interruption to daily operations. This required a lot of consideration into how the equipment could be retrofitted to a diverse fleet of bus models, while ensuring fleet disruption was kept to a minimum.

The Solution

CSE Crosscom engineered a professional-grade public transport communication solution utilising DMR two-way radio technology, enabling multiple drivers to communicate with dispatchers via a single fleet management system.

Working with the Transdev team, CSE Crosscom introduced the Orion Network – Australia’s most reliable digital two-way radio network. The Orion Network allows radio users to communicate wirelessly over long distances, while also ensuring emergency calls and duress signals are delivered with the highest priority.

• CSE Crosscom installed new radios in over 500 vehicles and at every depot in the Melbourne CBD and its surrounding suburbs, along with TRBOnet, a professional-grade control room software supporting dispatch operations and enabling real-time visibility of the entire fleet, while capturing call records and facilitating GPS tracking.
• CSE Crosscom provides Transdev with a support program and defined Service Level Agreement (SLA) to ensure the communications solution continues to operate reliably.
• Establishment of pre-defined voice and text messages enable drivers to provide real time status notifications to the new centralised control room, including “bus full” and “behind schedule” updates. Initiation of multiple talk paths yields flexible, rapid communication to responding officers, drivers, depots, supervisors and mechanics.

CSE Crosscom has been working together with Transdev since 2015 and is constantly looking for new ways to innovate and improve communication technologies for the bus services sector in order to enhance the delivery of critical transport services throughout Australia. We continue to research and develop ways in which real time information flow, via the Orion Network will influence the driver, operations centre and customer experience.