Skip to main content

QRoutes helps optimise routes for Sheffield’s special transport needs

Sheffield City Council is using cloud-based software from QRoutes to plan and refine around 145 routes for its Special Education Needs (SEN) Transport service. The UK council provides transport for 1,000 children to around 35 schools. Mike Keen, Sheffield’s senior transport officer, says the web-based solution’s multi-layered mapping allows users to view as many routes as required. Keen adds: “It takes about 30 seconds to run a plan and the system will give us an array of around ten different solution
June 6, 2018 Read time: 1 min
Sheffield City Council is using cloud-based software from 8661 QRoutes to plan and refine around 145 routes for its Special Education Needs (SEN) Transport service. The UK council provides transport for 1,000 children to around 35 schools.


Mike Keen, Sheffield’s senior transport officer, says the web-based solution’s multi-layered mapping allows users to view as many routes as required.

Keen adds: “It takes about 30 seconds to run a plan and the system will give us an array of around ten different solutions to consider – that would have taken days to do in the past.”

The SEN fleet includes a range of minibuses and large specialist wheelchair life vehicles that carry up to 16 passengers. The council also uses outsourced taxi services to transport 130 passengers that fall outside the scope of its fleet.

UTC

Related Content

  • May 8, 2019
    Telensa and Samsung SDS partner on smart city infrastructure
    Telensa has joined forces with Samsung SDS to work on smart city projects in Asia Pacific and the US. Starting with Korea, the partners will collaborate on smart streetlighting, combining Telensa’s Planet Streetlight control application with Samsung’s Brightics Internet of Things (IoT) platform to help cities save energy and access a range of sensor applications. Telensa will utilise Samsung’s resources in areas such as 5G and blockchain, which require streetlight access for widescale deployment.
  • October 26, 2017
    USDoT looks at the costs and potential benefits of connected vehicles
    David Crawford looks at latest lessons learned from the trials of connected vehicles in the US. The progress of connected vehicle (CV) technologies takes centre stage among the hot topics highlighted in the September 2017 edition – the first since 2014 – of the ‘ITS Benefits, Costs and Lessons Learned’ survey from the US ITS Joint Program Office (JPO). The organisation is an arm of the US Department of Transportation (USDoT).
  • August 23, 2016
    Xerox takes youthful view of future transport
    Xerox’s David Cummins talks to Colin Sowman about the lessons for city authorities from its survey of younger peoples’ attitude to transport. There can be no better way to get a handle on the future of transport demand than to ask the younger generation about how they view and consume today’s transport. Sociologists have called this group Generation Z – those born between 1995 and 2007 – which will make up 40% of all US consumers by 2020.
  • March 17, 2016
    ‘Free’ power for signs, shelters and so much more
    David Crawford looks at the sunny side of the street. Solar power has been relatively slow in entering the transport sector, but a current blossoming of activity bodes well for the large-scale harnessing of an alternative energy that is zero-emission at source and, in practical terms, infinitely renewable. Traffic management and traveller information systems, and actual vehicles, are all emerging as areas for deployment. Meanwhile roads themselves are being viewed as new-style, fossil fuel-free ‘power stati