Serving more than three million rides across nearly 5.5 million miles, the Corpus Christi Regional Transportation Authority (CCRTA) provides safe and accessible transportation to more than ten metropolitan and rural communities within an 846-square-mile area in South Texas. Based in Corpus Christi, along the South Texas Gulf Coast, CCRTA has been responsive to infrastructure developments across Corpus Christi and surrounding areas. Construction has led to frequent and extended detours on nearly half of CCRTA’s routes. To keep passengers informed of changes, CCRTA communicated updates via its website, social media, and Customer Service Department. However, ensuring all passengers were aware of detours became a top priority for CCRTA’s Board of Directors and Executive Leadership. “We wanted to provide real-time data to make our communication more effective,” said Derrick Majchszak, CCRTA’s Chief Executive Officer. CCRTA’s previous system lacked specific location data and real-time updates, limiting accurate predictions on bus arrivals and responses to construction disruptions. “These disruptions impact the overall rider experience,” Majchszak said. In searching for a new Computer-Aided Dispatch/Automatic Vehicle Location (CAD/AVL) system, CCRTA prioritized real-time data integration, including General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) and automated passenger counters. “Real-time data benefits both our customers and our staff by enabling us to better plan services based on actual usage,” Majchszak said. EQUANS, a leader in CAD/AVL solutions, provided the NAVINEO CAD/AVL, a system tailored to address CCRTA’s needs, including rapid detour management. “Construction disruptions affect transit operations, creating detours across the city,” said Kilian Ollivier, Director of Business Development for EQUANS. “Our system allows CCRTA to implement detours instantly, updating bus operators, passengers, and public apps in real time.” EQUANS offers innovative CAD/AVL solutions to public transit systems globally, enhancing passenger experience, operational efficiency, safety, and maintenance. Its comprehensive suite supports various transit modes and includes features for incident management, performance reporting, and real-time updates via apps, websites, and service alerts. NAVINEO, the CAD/AVL system optimizes service performance, enhances reliability, and promotes passenger safety. Supervisory staff can manage vehicles remotely and quickly respond to field disruptions by creating detours or adjusting schedules. “With the EQUANS CAD/AVL system, CCRTA can now make real-time adjustments to minimize impacts on riders,” Majchszak said. CCRTA first partnered with EQUANS in 2019 and became the first U.S. transit agency to use its system. The company prepared a tailored training program for CCRTA’s operators and staff during the installation phase. “Our project team provides onsite training, including real-world simulations,” Ollivier said. Maintenance staff also receive hands-on training to understand hardware and troubleshooting. “EQUANS provided great support, ensuring smooth installation and training,” Majchszak said. “Thery were exceptionally responsive and supported our IT team throughout. Since installation, we’ve had no repair needs on our system,” Majchszak said. Since the pilot program, CCRTA’s partnership with EQUANS has expanded. By 2023, CCRTA equipped its full fleet with EQUANS technology and encouraged the community to use the GoPass Mobile App for real-time transit information. “Our customers can now view detours, capacity, and route updates on GoPass or our website, helping them make informed trip-planning decisions,” Majchszak said. As part of the system expansion, CCRTA installed the EQUANS automatic passenger counters (APCs) on its fleet, meeting requirements for National Transit Database (NTD) certification for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). “APCs eliminate the need for manual passenger counts, saving costs and providing accurate data for service planning,” Majchszak said. The APC system has allowed CCRTA to track individual bus stop usage in real time, improving route planning and stop allocation. “Before, data collection was limited. Now, we have precise data to optimize our service,” Majchszak said. The EQUANS technology, combined with CCRTA’s Shelter Expansion Program, which added nearly 400 new Tolar shelters, continues to enhance the rider experience. Majchszak said that since adopting the system, the agency has already improved rider experience through route efficiency, increased timeliness and added amenities, nearly 50 percent of bus stops are now equipped with shelters. “EQUANS technology is helping us build a future-ready transit system, responsive to infrastructure changes and evolving rider needs,” Majchszak said.

Since taking new ownership in 2019 with nine drivers, one office employee, and one mechanic, Michigan-based charter and tour company, National Trails, has seen tremendous growth. In the last three years alone, the company has more than tripled the number of employees, doubled its school bus fleet and increased its motorcoach fleet size by 15. “During this period of rapid growth, we have been incredibly reliant on our software,” said Austin Arksey, owner of National Trails. “If we didn’t have software like busHive, we would not have been able to scale as easily and as efficiently as we have.” According to Arksey, when he purchased National Trails in 2019, charters were managed via handwritten or typewritten messages being physically handed to drivers. One of the first initiatives the company undertook was digitizing these many processes, and that meant migrating the manual charter-booking into busHive. busHive provides cloud-based software to streamline workflows and recordkeeping across the entire charter process – from the initial quote to confirmations, contracts, generating driver itineraries, billing, and invoicing. National Trails uses the software to manage its sales, billing, and payroll – with reporting that shows revenue per vehicle, profit/loss analysis, and other important benchmarking tools. “As we are continuing to add additional fleet, busHive has been very instrumental in giving us the keys to have visibility to being able to see our trips on a daily, weekly, monthly, even annual basis as well,” Arksey said. “It has been very helpful to have solid software in place as we continue to grow.” However, rapid scalability often comes with its own set of challenges as National Trails well knows. With the accelerated addition of employees, Arksey said that ensuring new hires are fully trained and brought up to speed on how the company functions and operates has been one of the biggest challenges thus far. “As we’ve been hiring people, some of the things that we look at are people’s adaptability, are they quick learners, especially when it comes to working with software and technology,” Arksey said. “We are not looking at people that can solve and handle the challenges that we have just today, that can help us solve the challenges we have tomorrow and beyond.” Arksey said that busHive has been instrumental in helping National Trails keep track of driver credentials and expiring licenses. The driver management tool has also enabled the company to maintain certifications without having any lapse in downtime for drivers. With the influx of new coaches and new business, preventive maintenance (PM) is always a primary concern. With more buses in the fleet, National Trails has continued to prioritize preventative maintenance on all its equipment. All work orders are loaded into busHive, allowing the company to ensure that PM orders process correctly and that inventory is properly maintained. “With the busHive software, we transitioned our techs from doing work orders on paper to doing them on tablets so we could reduce the amount of time that it took for those work orders to get into our system and have quicker visibility to be able to make decisions on equipment,” Arksey said. “Our downtime was reduced, and we were able to better manage, monitor and maintain our preventative maintenance schedules.” Arksey said he and his team feel extremely comfortable utilizing the busHive charter system as National Trails continues to grow, citing the great support network which the company provides. “The busHive team has been great,” Arksey said. “In the many years we have been working with busHive we have not faced any outages. Anytime we have suggestions their team is always receptive to changes and interested in learning about new ideas. It has been a great partnership and experience.”

  Established in 1947 as a manufacturer of transit Fare Boxes and Donation Boxes, Diamond Manufacturing, located in North Kansas City, Missouri, is a family-owned and operated business that began producing Round Fare Boxes for coin fares over 70 years ago. In 1972, after 25 years of producing Fare Boxes, Diamond Manufacturing was purchased by the Cull family, who three generations later, have expanded the line from 2 Fare Boxes to 8 Models, 3 Donation Boxes and various custom products for the transit industry. The Fare Boxes, made entirely of stainless steel and aluminum, require little to no maintenance and operate very simply. A rider drops the cash or coin fare through a slot on the top, the driver then depresses the drop handle to deposit the money into the unit’s money vault which are designed with level 4 secure locks custom-made specifically for Diamond. To remove the fares, an agent representative inserts a key, removes the vault and replaces it with an empty unit. The Fare Box is now ready for more fares. “It’s simple fare collection,” said Todd Cull, owner and operator of Diamond Manufacturing. “You install it, you use it, and you don’t worry about it. It has a 30-year life span. There are no software upgrades. It’s just a simple, reliable, cost-effective unit for cash collection.” With an extensive life span and very few moving parts, maintaining the Fare Box is a straightforward, cost-effective process, says Cull. “The parts are readily available, and customers can repair the units themselves, they don’t have to be sent into us, nor do you have to hire someone to take care of the Fare Boxes,” Cull said. “It’s pretty self-sufficient.” Today, Diamond works with transit providers all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and Barbados. Fleets range in size from one to over 300 buses. The model of Fare Box utilized by an agency depends primarily on cash capacity as well as space. “We can take care of any size transit system, whether it’s taking a few dollars to a few hundred dollars or more,” Cull said. “For a lot of transit operations, it doesn’t make sense to buy a larger fare system. Especially with agencies of all sizes taking in less cash. It becomes more cost-effective to simply buy a manual Fare Box.” An agency that cannot afford a complicated fare infrastructure can turn to Diamond for Fare Boxes that fit their needs. “A lot of transit systems are looking to have riders pay with a card or an app on their phones.” Cull said. “But there are approximately 15 percent of the population that are unbanked, and we can help with those cash paying customers.” Cull says that while Diamond Fare Boxes have maintained their simplicity over the years, they have still managed to find a place in the world of rapidly developing smart technology. Diamond works with various companies that have developed sophisticated card systems or fare collection apps but need a basic way to still collect cash. “There are a lot of card systems out there versus Fare Box companies,” Cull said. “Now, transit can marry that up with a simple fare collection. It puts us in a bigger playing field, and it’s certainly been fun to work with these companies and see the technology portion of the industry. Basically, wherever that market is, we try to have a solution for it.”