SolTrans, officially Solano County Transit, is a Joint Powers Authority that provides public transportation service to the southern Solano County cities of Vallejo and Benicia in California. In previous years, they struggled with accurate service data and performance reports and were investing a lot of time and manpower into reconciling copious stacks of paper. When looking for a solution they found Avail’s real-time functionality would be key to their agency.

As with any major change in operations, issues occur. However, as a nascent agency, SolTrans was going through growing pains during their initial implementation. They were struggling with staff buy-in, establishing and maintaining procedures, and formulating solutions due to the initial configuration of the system. Avail’s team was able to implement a project reset that put them in the effective and confident position they’re in now.

Bisi Ibrahim, a program analyst for SolTrans, had this to say: “With Avail, our staff—both agency and contract-operations—have benefited greatly by the increase in transparency. We are more efficient in recognizing and responding to operator issues as they are happening. The system also exposed areas where communication was lacking between operators, dispatch and agency staff, and that was allowing complacency to take hold. We came together and have addressed instances where best-laid service plans were not working. In addition, Avail has given our Maintenance Department more autonomy. They can now track vehicles on their own and immediately recognize vehicles that need investigation through event communications.”

There is still an area of opportunity growth for SolTrans. They are still cementing their quality control for data reconciliation procedures. Once that is in place, with the help of Avail, they would like to focus on schedule adherence and make strategic plans for encouraging stellar performance.