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Table of Contents

Shuttle Bus Business Overview

Shuttle buses run betweentake people regularly to and from key destinations

  1. Destinations (eg airport / seaport) where passengers are picked up or dropped

  2. Addresses

    1. The price of the fare depends on the area of the Address found using suburb / postcode

    2. The address may be selected from a list

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      1. Hotels - flagged in the system as Hotels

      2. Common Stops - eg railway stations - flagged in the system as common stops

      3. Shuttle Stops - eg University Dorm - Addresses on Debtors that have flag of Shuttle Stop

    2. The address may be manually entered

Broadly there are two a few types of shuttle runsbusinesses

  1. Ad-Hoc - built as bookings are received - common with:

    1. Areas with sporadic bookings

    2. Private addresses

    3. Bookings can be added to existing legs or be manually added to a run

  2. Route - scheduled runs

    1. Some stops are made even if no booking exists

    2. Strict schedule adherence

    3. Bookings can auto-attach easily

  3. Driver Scheduled

    1. Drivers pick bookings from a list of bookings by adding their name to the booking

    2. Drivers mark bookings on / off / missed in a portal

Definitions

  1. States of Operation - a shuttle run will normally only travel in a single state

  2. Destinations Serviced - eg airport with address and terminals

    1. Hubs are a grouping of destinations

  3. Areas serviced for the destinations

    1. ie Areas that do have a travel time to the destination chosen are not serviced

  4. Services offered

    1. normally a default service and an alternate service eg( Shuttle or Private Vehicle)

  5. Customer Online booking and Payment

  6. Planning Bus Runs

  7. Drivers Portal marking onboard / missed

  8. Delegations

    1. to others (A need to Pay others)

    2. from others (A need to Collect payment from others)

  9. Guest Bookings

    1. Guest bookings are when the person booking online does not create their own account and instead the booking is entered under the cash customer.

Customer online Booking and Payment

  1. Customers are either

    1. individuals making bookings using an online website after authentication

    2. Anonymous Guest users making bookings using the online website (refusing to register)

  2. Referring organisations may provide a LOGO image to display to referred customers

    1. Example a hotel may want their logo displayed if a link was provided from their website to the booking site

  3. The booking screen may be a single page - or setup as a stepped wizard

  4. The customer may make a return booking and pay for it all at the same time

  5. The payment is online and the booking if not paid is not retained by the system

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    1. This is to avoid tyre kickers creating bookings in the system.

Online Booking Portal

Some key options:

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URL extensions

  1. Take the base URL

  2. add ?cardNo=xxxxx (The first variable has a ? in front of it)

  3. &bookingEntity=xxxxx (variables after the first one have & to include them as a variable)

  4. Example: url.saasplications.com.au/login?cardNo=1111&bookingEntity=1111

&cardNo=xxxxxx

  • Finds the image from that Company or it’s parent card

  • Finds if the Company has an “Installation Option” to be captured by travellers (eg Student No.)

    • If it does then the anonymous booking is not allowed.

&bookingEntity=xxxxxx

  • Sets the Booking Entity on the booking

    • Booking entity inherits rules from the debtor (eg to hide or limit options)

    • Booking entity can trigger a promotion

&HideLogout=Y

  • Hides the logout button so it cannot be used. This setting is required when a portlet shows the booking wizard and the portlet is used to close the session. It avoids the system showing a logout page after a timeout that might have a different logo. NOTE - the portlet timeout needs to be less than the system timeout.

Promotions

  1. If the portal does not have a referrer

    1. Any promotion code can be used to discount the price

  2. If the portal does have a referrer

    1. Only Promotions that can be accessed by the referrer can be used

    2. Each referrer may have multiple promotions valid with different % rates

Field on booking “Promotion Code”

  1. Validates against current promotions of type “Social Media”

  2. If the booking has a referrer THEN only promotions available to the referrer are available

  3. Promotion discounts the entire booking by the % nominated from the currently calculated price

  4. Booking Payment is reduced to new value based on % of promotion discount

  5. DPP created for booking has a line for the discount amount linked to the promotion

Field on Booking “Under 18” checkbox - shows below

  1. The Booking Entity has a profile option of type “Grading“ Boolean YES - then the field on the booking “I am under 18” shows below the email address.

Other portal settings

The fields can be arranged in any order or as a simpler stepped wizard easily

Phone number is setup on the host company > Contact Types > Key = CUSTOMERHOTLINE

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The customer will then receive a booking confirmation email with an attached invoice

If the customer logs in again and has an existing booking they will see it is possible to show existing bookings it at the top of the screen -(see the green line below). Customers have not been provided the ability to change bookings online once booked.

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The booking will then be ready for adding to a Bus Run

Booking confirmation email template

  • Email Template for the booking confirmation

    • Usage context = Booking

    • System Usage = Order/Booking Payment Receipt

    • Recipients Role = Customer

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Booking Time calculations

Bookings use the following logic to calculate times

  1. A time is required (Arrival or departure)

    1. Flight or ship time normally

  2. The destination must be on the booking

    1. Destinations include

      1. minutes to add if pick up from

      2. minutes to add if drop off to

  3. The address must be on the booking with a suburb/postcode

    1. A postcode results in an Area designation

    2. The Area combined with the destination results in expected travel time

  4. The date must be entered

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A time is required

  1. Flight or ship time

Email Templates to use merge fields [PickupTimeSafe] and [DropoffTimeSafe] for shuttle bookings

Booking changes

The customer has not been allowed to make changes to their bookings -

  • they will need to make a phone call

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  • or email

If a booking has already been paid for it cannot be changed

  1. it can be cancelled for credit and a replacement booking entered only

Bus Runs

When a company wants the system to plan all the pickups and drop offs based on booking times then bus runs are used.

Bus Runs that are a number of Routes

When a company uses regular routes

  • Bus runs have Legs and each Leg can be a route (example leg is a trip from the city to the airport)

  • Bookings will attach to

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  • a suitable leg based on time of pickup

  • Additional legs will auto create as new bookings are added if no suitable leg exists

Bus runs that are Ad-hoc

When a company does not have regular routes

  • Bus Runs have Legs and each leg is TO or FROM a destination (or group of destinations where they are linked using a TAG).

  • Ad-hoc runs do not pickup and drop off at the same time

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  • Bookings are manually added to runs and legs are created manually if required

Ad-hoc bus runs are common where there is not sufficient volume to have regular cycles. This is very common in the Shuttle Bus industry.

No Bus Runs - Driver self Scheduling - all internal drivers so can see all bookings

When a company allows drivers to pickup bookings or pass bookings to others in team there is no need for bus runs

  1. The driver is linked instead directly to the booking

    1. Drivers can be linked anytime to a booking

  2. The Buses have a login to the system (special type of employee)

    1. The driver then enterers their login details (AKA and pin)

    2. The driver can see

      1. All bookings linked to them

      2. All bookings with no driver linked

      3. All bookings linked to other drivers

    3. The Driver can

      1. Assign themselves to any booking (including one already assigned to another driver)

      2. Remove themselves from any booking not yet picked up

  3. There is a manager portal allowing a manager to assigned bookings to drivers

    1. The manager can also change the expected pickup time in case the passenger has contacted with an update

Planning Ad-Hoc Bus Runs

Ad-Hoc runs do not follow a schedule and bookings are commonly manually planned.

The Bus Shift is made up of Runs - TO or FROM destinations.

  1. Bookings can only be appended to legs that support the booking direction and destination

  2. Bus Shifts are offered with a right click on the booking

    1. The logic for finding viable Runs within a Bus Shift
      a) the Run is a matching booking type (inbound vs outbound) from the destination
      b) the Run has bookings attached
      c) the bookings pick up time <= the Run latest drop off time
      d) the bookings drop off time >= the Run earliest pick up
      e) the booking pick up time falls within the earliest pick up to latest drop off duration OR the booking drop off time falls within the earliest pick up to latest drop off duration

    2. if a Run is deemed viable but either the pick up OR drop off time is outside the earliest pick up to latest drop off duration, then highlight this fact to the user but still allow for the booking to be added to the Run

    3. do not allow a booking of incompatible booking type to be added to a Run

A view of the day and bookings shows

  1. Planned Bus runs (a combination of a driver and a vehicle with a from and to time on a date)

  2. Bus Run Legs

    1. Ad-Hoc runs = a group of bookings in a direction to or from a destination

      1. Eg a group of bookings to the airport will be a leg

      2. At the end of the leg the driver will indicate starting the next leg

      3. The following bookings from the airport will be the next leg

    2. Route runs = a route from start to finish

      1. Eg a route may start at a destination (eg the airport) full of people - expecting to later end at a destination (eg the airport) full of people.

      2. Travel around a series of stops

      3. Drop off and pickup during the route

  3. Allocated bookings (bookings already assigned to a Run Leg)

  4. UnAllocated bookings (bookings that need to be assigned to a run

    1. Bookings can be assigned or moved runs anytime

The Drivers Day - Routes and add hoc Bus Runs

The driver uses the drivers portal to:

  1. View their runs today and in the future

  2. Confirm they have done a vehicle check

  3. Start their run

  4. Be shown the next address to go to

  5. Mark passengers on-board / missed / or end of leg

  6. Back to 4 until day is finished

Payment of Referrals

What is a referrer ? A referrer is a company that

  1. Provides a booking to you

  2. Does not pay for that booking

  3. May expect to get some payment for providing the booking (ie Creditor)

A Referrer is captured on the booking - the referrer is to be paid the % entered on the Supplier Card

  1. Changes to the % requires Secure Features

  2. Changes to the rating require Secure Features

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End to End flow of a shuttle booking

The system include full financials (GL/AP/AR etc)

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Pricing logic

Each customer may use a different pricing logic - below is an example

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Where a price cannot be calculated

Where a price cannot be calculated > “manual pricing” will tick on.

  1. The customer portal will save the booking and not allow online payment
    a) changes the "Pay Now" button to read "Create Booking"
    b) saves the booking but do not prompt for payment
    c) show the "Thank You" dialogue with customised text to indicate that the customer will be contacted regarding pricing

The customer will need to be contacted and a price entered manually by the back office

Create and Modify Delegate Invoices

Any organisation can have be an inbound or outbound delegations on a booking.

An inbound delegate is a company that:

  1. Pays you (ie a Debtor)

  2. Either

    1. Has a booking from a customer they cannot service - so are passing it on

    2. Are an organisation that pays for people to travel. An example is a company that allows it’s users to make bookings that they later pay for.

  3. inbound delegates can be added to the booking manually or based on a parameter being passed into the portal

  4. Some pay full price, some pay a reduced amount.

    1. The % reduction to be paid by a delegate is held in the Debtor > Commission % field. If they pay full price this should be zero.

      1. Updating this requires Secure Features and Secure Features

An outbound delegate is a company that :

  1. carries a booking for you that you cannot carry

  2. Gets paid by you (ie are a creditor)

  3. May be paid less than the booking amount. The % reduction to be paid to a delegate is held on the Creditor > Commission % field.

    1. Updating this requires Secure Features

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Use the Edit - Delete option to delete a Delegate Invoice

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Print the Delegate Invoice

Student Bookings for University

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Confirm but No Payment (to be updated)

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Example limitations that can be enforced on bookings

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Student Login

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Create Booking

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Create Booking No Payment (University is charged)

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Inbound Delegate Invoicing

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List bookings and Create Invoice

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Print Invoice

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Amount Paid is the amount computed by the referral percentage set for the University

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Cruise Bookings

Create Booking

From Airport to Cruise

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From Cruise to Airport

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Admin - Route Admin - Regions / Areas

From/To White Bay - enter time in minutes to go to / from Domestic Airport and International Airport to White Bay

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Admin - Route Admin - Regions / Areas

From/To Overseas Passenger Terminal - enter time in minutes to go to / from Domestic Airport and International Airport to Overseas Passenger Terminal

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