Extraboard team sizing: An analysis of short unscheduled absences among regular transit drivers: Fid-Bau Portal

Extraboard team sizing: An analysis of short unscheduled absences among regular transit drivers

Diab, Ehab I. / Wasfi, Rania A. / El-Geneidy, Ahmed M.

Highlights • This article focuses on regular bus drivers’ short-duration unscheduled absences. • It analyzes absenteeism data at the aggregate level of garage-day-period. • A multilevel regression model is generated to investigate regular drivers’ absence. • Sensitivity analyses are conducted to evaluate the benefits of using modeling. • It provides transit planners with a methodology to support extraboard planning practice.

Abstract Several factors contribute to short-duration unscheduled absences of bus transit drivers. This article aims to understand these factors at the aggregate level and to anticipate future total absence that will need to be filled for a large-size transit operator. The aggregate level is defined as the total number of regular driver absences per garage, day of week and time period that need to be covered by the extraboards. This study analyzes absenteeism data obtained from OC Transpo, the transit provider of the city of Ottawa, Canada. A multilevel regression model is generated to investigate regular drivers’ absences. The short-unscheduled absence is estimated in relation to temporal factors, drivers’ personal characteristics, aspects of assigned work, and service delivery characteristics. Furthermore, using the model’s coefficients, sensitivity analyses are conducted to demonstrate the advantages of this technique over traditional ones adopted by various transit agencies. This study provides transit planners and policy makers with a practical methodology that can be used to support extraboard planning practice and help reduce the incidence of missed trips due to absences while having the appropriate size of extraboard drivers.