Started out in 2007, DIMTS is an urban transport and infrastructure development company. Headquartered in New Delhi, the company provides Concept-to-Commissioning consultancy, Intelligent Transport System solutions and Urban Transport asset management services.

It is a well-proven fact that ERP solutions, if structured and implemented conscientiously, can yield substantive & measurable results by optimizing costs and integrating the disparate business processes for greater efficiencies and productivity.

Even though the usage of ERP systems is all-pervasive, it has found minimal traction among the Transport Undertakings adequately to deliver its greater potential.

Transport operators, especially in the public bus fleet space, are constantly struggling to ensure commercial viability of their operations. While it is a fact that public transport initiatives and infrastructure investments typically operate more aligned to their economic rate of return, i.e. larger social value and mobility related economic impact, bus operators across the country and most parts of the world are constantly desirous to ensure greater efficiencies, commercial viabilities and reduction in viability gaps in the public sector [STUs].

An appropriate and customized ERP solution can come to their rescue and help them achieve these objectives.

Some of the key areas where ERP systems can help in this are as follows.

1.Route & Crew Scheduling Management
Route & Crew Scheduling forms the back-bone of STU operations. ERPs can be used to automate the duty allocation to drivers and conductors by using intelligent scheduling methods and historical data. This will optimize crew availability while adhering to labour laws and regulations.

The daily duty roster can be auto-generated by the system thereby eliminating manual fallacies. The details of all vehicles entering and exiting the yard can be auto-captured by the system by making effective use of RFID technology. Any aberrations from the finalized duty roster can be immediately red-flagged and highlighted to the concerned manager for remedial action.

2. Ticketing Management
ERP systems can aid in both manual as well as technology driven auto fare collection operations. In the case of manual tickets, which continue to be the larger segment of India’s urban bus operations, the ERP systems though dependent on manual data inputs provide for system driven reconciliations and multiple layers of revenue computations related to routes, time-of-the-day, and others.

Additionally paper-ticket stock management e.g. opening stock, re-order level, indent generation, receipt of tickets can be easily handled by the system leading to reduced pilferage and better tracking.

Automated Fare Collection (AFC) System for public transport typically employs card and paper ticket validators, inspector terminals, onboard computers and software in addition to off-board ticket dispensing infrastructures such as kiosks and auto dispensers. Data from disparate points flow to a central data processing unit, enabling the operator to benefit from the knowledge the system provides for various operational parameters and related efficiencies. A customized ERP solution is the critical backbone on which such data, often emanating from different technology & hardware elements, is aggregated to provide for cohesive interoperability and outputs.

3. Purchase & Inventory Management
Purchase & inventory management is the key to transport fleet operations. Commercial efficiencies and higher degree of service delivery is critically dependent on fleet availability. Given the electro- mechanical nature of the rolling stocks purchase of consumables & spares and their related inventory holding costs are vital determinants of the bus fleet operations.

Using a customized ERP system, inventories at depots and maintenance yards become online leading to transparency and cost optimization.

Requisitions from depots can be routed through the system for better tracking. The purchase orders can be system-generated. Over a period of time, a repository of such orders can be maintained which can assist in better decision making. ERP can assist in ABC and VED analysis of inventory items for efficient stock management.

4. MIS Reporting
The MIS reporting module of ERP is one of the most crucial modules since it extracts data from all other modules and presents it in a cogent format which can provide vital information for decision-making. In the case of transport fleets, some of the key reports which can be generated from the system are Route receipt per km, Utilization, Load Factor, Productivity, KMPL, etc.

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