Overview of One Transport

One Transport supports the core processes of an LA’s transport team, enabling users to manage online parental applications, run assessments, create tickets, make payments, run budget forecasts and manage journeys. Most of One Transport v4’s processes can be run either as individual cases or in bulk jobs.

One Transport consists of two different modules: Transport Back Office, which is used by transport officers; and Transport Portal, the online application form. Transport Portal is accessed via the Citizen Portal, alongside the Free School Meals and Admissions portals. The Citizen Portal uses the Portal Back Office module to manage matching student conflicts. As an optional extra, GIS v4 can be integrated into Transport Back Office to help with measurement and assessment calculations. GIS is a separately purchasable site licence that enables One users to view addresses and schools on a map.

The two Transport products form part of the overall One solution and are fully integrated with the core One database. Transport is a back office product intended to be installed on an intranet rather than accessed from the Internet.

From the One Autumn 2018 release (3.67), permission can now be given to users to edit memos within the Applications and Assessments areas, independently of whether the user can also edit Applications and Assessments themselves.

Processes Overview

The role of a transport officer working within a Local Authority (LA)’s transport team is to address the transport needs of eligible applicants within that authority.

LAs deliver transport services in diverse ways, depending on the geographic and demographic natures of the areas that they serve. However, all LAs are looking to achieve the same aims in scheduling transport and use similar processes to achieve those aims. One Transport has been designed to reflect those processes and so reflect how transport officers and teams work.

A number of One Transport v4’s more common processes can be used with multiple cases simultaneously, as well as with individual cases. This approach helps transport teams to work efficiently, using bulk processing to address “standard” cases while transport officers concentrate on more challenging, individual cases.

• Application, Assessment, Approval and Allocation of JourneysApplication, Assessment, Approval and Allocation of Journeys

  The four key processes for a transport team are application, assessment, approval and journey allocation.

  Applications (Processes | Single passenger | Applications) can be received directly from carers via the Transport Portal. Alternatively, they can be entered by transport officers transcribing from paper forms or receiving application details from phone calls.

  Assessments determine a candidate’s eligibility for transport. To perform an assessment, a candidate’s assessment criteria are entered in One Transport’s Assessment tab (Processes | Single passenger | Assessments). These are evaluated against a set of pre-defined criteria to determine the candidate’s eligibility for transport. Assessments can be run either on an individual basis or for several candidates at once (Processes |Multiple passengers | Perform assessments).

  Approvals mark an application as accepted, confirming that the authority will provide transport for the candidate who made that application.

  Journey allocation is based on the evaluation of user-supplied information about the origin and destination of journeys. For users with GIS, One Transport’s Suggest function can suggest a possible route based on the criteria provided (Processes | Single passengers |Journeys).

  The allocation process can also be performed in bulk, with transport officers choosing a group of candidates to allocate journeys to using selection criteria (Processes | Multiple passengers | Allocate journey).

• Tickets, Invoices and Payments OutTickets, Invoices and Payments Out

  Although applications, assessments and journey allocations are common to all transport applications, individual LAs may use different processes to meet transport requirements. In addition, different journey types (such as door-to-door routes for passengers with special needs) may require LAs to use a different assessment and allocation process.

  Some LAs issue journey tickets. Tickets can be issued either individually (Processes | Single Passenger | Tickets) or in bulk (Processes | Multiple Passengers | Issue Ticket).

  LAs may decide to sell spare journey capacity to carers. They may also want to bill for other reasons, for example to pay for damage. To do so, the LA needs to issue Invoices.

  Invoices can be issued either individually (Processes | Single Passenger | Invoices) or in bulk (Processes | Multiple Passengers | Invoice Passengers).

  LAs may also wish to pay a carer to provide transport. This usually happens where it is cheaper to pay a carer to provide transport than to organise transport by other means. The Payments Out function enables the LA to make these payments.