www.future-processing.com
CASE STUDY
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ABOUT THE CLIENT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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OUR ROLE
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EFFECTS OF OUR COOPERATION
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WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT?
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BUSINESS PROBLEM THAT WE SOLVED
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CHALLENGES
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PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
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www.future-processing.com
Trapeze Group is an international transportation software company with over 2,500 customers worldwide.
Their main business is to deliver the best technology, systems and services, in order to automate the multitude of tasks in transportation services.
Their solutions consider the full 360 degrees of their Client’s operations. The integrated approach provides a complete enterprise solution connecting the back office, operations and information centers with vehicles, as well as on-street and on-road equipment.
Trapeze Group is a subsidiary of Volaris Group, which is mainly focused on acquiring, strengthening and growing vertical market technology companies enabling them to be clear leaders within their focused industry.
ABOUT THE CLIENT
Trapeze Group
is a provider of software
solutions used for public transport,
including taxi and private hire fleet
management.
Our cooperation with Auriga Taxi Systems Ltd (later acquired by Trapeze Group UK) started in 2009 and resulted in many interesting projects.
We work closely with the Client and often visit each other, since regular communication and receiving constant feedback are very important for both sides. It is safe to say that we are being trusted and treated as a partner. This is manifested, among others, by the fact that we are given a lot of freedom in the case of technological solutions.
On a daily basis our cooperation is based on agile methodologies. Trapeze gives us their demand and we constantly try to improve their software, adding necessary functionalities.
OUR ROLE
We have developed a number of server, web and mobile
applications for Trapeze’s Auriga Dispatch System, which
manages private hire and taxi fleets.
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EFFECTS OF
OUR COOPERATION
The most tangible effect of our cooperation is EVO SOLUTIONS –
an internal desktop app written in Java, used mainly to manage
tens of thousands of jobs every day, like the process of ordering
a taxi, scheduling, and staff asset management.
Dave Rose,
Operations Manager
I think the team cooperation has to be the strongest plus point for Future Processing. Both teams we work with communicate well with my team based in the UK, are open to offering suggestions of improvements with functionality and technology stacks.
Our mobile department worked for Trapeze Group as well.
Read more about mobile apps
that we’ve done!
How does it work in practice? To put it simply, the taxi company gets a booking, which is then sent to the most efficient vehicle for the job to be completed, satisfying the end customer’s needs. There are many interesting business rules such as dispatching optimisation based on zones and point-based math algorithms or various loyalty benefits for regular customers. This allows Trapeze customers to utilise the system exactly the way they need, making the system more attractive to them.
We have updated the maps, so that they display more detailed, up-to-date information. This allows telephonists to view and track vehicles on their own screen, giving them the ability to provide better ‘back on the phone’ service to their customers. Improving the appearance of maps contributed significantly to increasing usability, especially with the possibility to manually dispatch a job to a vehicle from the enquiry screen.
Our main goal was to ensure that Trapeze
can continue to offer a competitive product
that is used by the biggest taxi companies
in the country, making passengers’ lives easier.
BUSINESS
PROBLEM
THAT WE SOLVED
Thanks to updating their software and adding new functionalities, we wanted to make it possible, to among others, optimise route planning and reach the passengers faster. This will reduce time and money, previously spent on driving additional miles. Adding and developing new components will allow greater optimisation, bringing Trapeze more satisfied Clients.
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CHALLENGES
Managing a fleet of taxis of that size,
where office efficiency is critical, was
very challenging for us.
Keeping drivers happy, providing passengers with excellent service or managing office staff were essential operational tasks that we kept in mind.
The core software in the Auriga Dispatch System was written in Enterprise JavaBeans 2.1. It was challenging to add new functionalities and to test, since tests had to be done manually. A long-term challenge we are currently working on is organising databases to enable Trapeze to migrate Clients from Oracle to MSSQL to reduce licence costs.
WHAT HAVE
WE LEARNED?
What we have learnt is of course domain
knowledge. This was a very valuable lesson
for us, since knowing that the fleet behaves
differently at different times during the
year (e.g. Halloween, Holiday time etc.)
showed us how important it is that during
these peaks the software remains responsive.
Being at the Client’s offices we had a training that showed us how the software really works. However, the most valuable lesson was visiting one of Trapeze’s end Clients, where we talked to real users and saw how the software is used on a daily basis. Thanks to this, we could learn from the inside and had a wider perception of users’ real needs.
We have also seen the reports presenting bounce rate of calls, which again focused our attention on how important it is for the software to be responsive, since the passengers can change their mind if waiting time is too long.
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www.future-processing.com
PLANS FOR
THE FUTURE
Our role in the future will be to further develop
and streamline Trapeze’s applications, so that
they are easier to use and more competitive.
PRIMARY
TECHNOLOGIES USED:
f fJava f fSwing f fOracle 9i f fMSSQL f fSpring Framework f fJBoss 4 ffOpen Street Maps f fGoogle Guava f fJunit f fLiquibase f fAnt f fMaven f fiOS f fAndroid
In addition implementing new features will ease the life of office workers, making their day-to-day job more effective and customer-oriented.
In future, if we were to outsource then I would
definitely consider Future Processing when making
this decision.
Dave Rose,
Operations Manager
Additionally, we would like to move the solution into the Cloud, which may be a great breakthrough for Trapeze, when it comes to fleet management, bringing them more possibilities for growth.
Trapeze also wants their devices to use Android, so our role will be to rewrite them.
Future Processing ul. Bojkowska 37A 44-100 Gliwice POLAND +48 32 461 23 00
