19 June 2020

Nottingham City Transport (NCT) is deploying the latest mobile technology across its engineering operations as part of the roll out of a new cloud-hosted system from Freeway Fleet Systems.

Engineering staff are being equipped with rugged tablet devices that synchronise in real time with a central Freeway system for managing the maintenance of over 300 buses. The tablets will be used to replace virtually all paperwork and will be utilised by everyone from technicians to electrical specialists and cleaners.
NCT said it required a system to transform what was largely a paper-based operation and – in addition to mobile paperless working – the company also specified a cloud-based system.

“For NCT the move from paper to digital working is expected to provide improved compliance and audit-trail as well as significant gains in productivity,” said Gary Mason, engineering director, Nottingham City Transport. “Real time visibility of defects will improve vehicle turnaround times. And beyond the efficiencies of more rapid vehicle turnaround the project has also identified significant cost reductions; printing alone has been costing us £25,000 annually,”

NCT is undertaking a phased roll out of Freeway with the first phase now complete, following the introduction of the workshop management software and live connected tablets. The next phase involves the integration of pre-service inspection reports provided by drivers using a Tranzaura app.