Making transportation accessible and efficient: Opt1dev's Innovative Web App

Opt1dev, a company specializing in vehicle routing solutions, partnered with Cegeka to develop an innovative web application aimed at improving passenger transportation services for people with disabilities and the elderly. This initiative was part of a Governmental program designed to provide special transportation conditions for these groups.

The application offers a dual access system: passengers can either call a dispatcher to request a ride or use the booking platform to place an order themselves. The core functionality of the app is to optimize route planning through an automatic planning engine. This engine utilizes advanced algorithms to support transport planners, resulting in significant savings on kilometers driven and driver hours, and enhancing the productivity of planners.

“The project was the first major project of Opt1dev and was very innovative in the market. The automatic plan engine of Opt1dev is state of the art and plans high volumes of trips in real-time and fully automatically. All while being highly flexible to cope with a large number of attributes, parameters and constraints. The customer was able to save significantly on driver shift hours and kilometers for a given number of trips”, said Frank Gottenbos, CEO Opt1dev.

Challenges and solutions

Opt1dev faced several challenges during the project. The project's large scale required additional resources, which led to the collaboration with Cegeka. "It was a large project for a small team and we needed to start from scratch. The internal team had experience in building similar systems, we needed help to set up the framework and experience in quickly building web-based interfaces”, mentioned Frank Gottenbos.

From a technical standpoint, the primary challenge was managing the real-time interactions within the system. The team had to adapt to a new framework while ensuring the system's architecture was robust enough to support future product lines. Key challenges included:

• Calculating routes considering numerous business variables.
• Responding in real time to planning events and manual interventions.
• Integrating external APIs into the main application.
• Managing the large infrastructure and multiple subprojects.
• Handling high volumes of requests during peak times.

"Mainly the complexity of all the real time interactions in the system and the fact that the team had to implement and get used to a new framework. The system is the basis for a future product line of Opt1dev, so it was of key importance that a sound architecture framework was adopted to make sure the product can be maintained and extended in the future.”

Frank Gottenbos, CEO Opt1dev

In close cooperation

Working in close cooperation with Opt1dev proved to be essential in the successful development of the application, and Frank Gottenbos acknowledged Cegeka's important contribution and expertise throughout the project. "Cegeka helped us to determine and implement the software architecture framework and solve many of the data handling challenges. Also, the development of Web-UI’s for booking trips, monitoring the planning, reporting etcetera, were handled by Cegeka who had more front-end experience."

The successful collaboration provided positive results. “The time required to book trips has reduced significantly through the Web-UI, by over 25%. This saves costs in front office staff. Also, previously two planning employees were required to plan trips. Now, only one is needed to manage trips, which is very welcome considering the shortage of skilled planners. The KPIs for planning efficiency, the so-called ritfactor 2.0, were improved by over 25%. This improvement correlates to a saving in driver shifts and kilometers with over 25%.

The positive results have contributed to two new implementations for other customers which have been started, and there is a lot of interest from the market”, said Frank Gottenbos, CEO Opt1dev.