Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) was presented with an Award of Excellence at ESRI Canada’s annual ESRI Regional User Conference in Vancouver. Alex Miller, President of ESRI Canada, presented the Award in recognition of CMBC’s innovation in the use of GIS-based internal web applications and databases for managing transportation facilities.

CMBC operates conventional buses, smaller community shuttles, trolley buses, and the SeaBus ferry system in the Greater Vancouver area, which is the largest single transit service area in Canada.  CMBC was formed in 1999 as an operating subsidiary of the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority (TransLink) to deliver bus transit services to the region.

"Over the years CMBC has consistently shown innovation in the use of ESRI products for viewing, maintaining, and analyzing bus routes within their organization," said Alex Miller, President, ESRI Canada. "They have been very creative in their use of web-based applications and have taken an innovative approach to employing advanced desktop GIS for operational and emergency planning purposes."

CMBC’s Enterprise Data and Systems Services Group maintain corporate GIS data information for most divisions within CMBC and TransLink. One of their many responsibilities is the creation and maintenance of a bus stop management system and route planning and analysis application. The application was developed (with the support of ESRI Canada) and designed using ArcIMS with an ArcSDE/Oracle database. The bus stop management system (BSMS) was unique in that users could not only view spatial and attribute information but could also edit the same data via an ArcIMS/ArcSDE web application.

Browser-based users were able to add, delete, and/or move bus stops and edit associated information. Functionality also provided transportation personnel with the ability to create and maintain new and existing bus routes via the web and share their information with other organizations and municipalities.

In addition, CMBC uses GIS for emergency planning which includes managing the impact on facilities in case of flood, earthquake, etc. For example, in case of a flood in a particular region, CMBC is able to use GIS to determine which bus operating centres and routes would be affected. Some of the other uses of GIS within CMBC include helping determine if safety issues (e.g. verbal or physical assaults, fare disputes) are wide spread or localized and determining what portions of their bus routes might fall outside of radio system coverage.

Moving forward, CBMC plans to migrate their applications to the latest ArcGIS Server platform later this year and plans to use ArcGIS Server to improve information dissemination within the organization and to the public.

Source: ESRI Canada