Meet ViaAlgo, the brain behind Via’s 500 worldwide deployments. In our ViaAlgo Features Series, get to know her expertise, honed by delivering millions of rides all over the globe.
Running a smooth and reliable transportation system is both an art and a science. Algorithms create efficiencies by routing vehicles, creating driver manifests, and optimizing for shared and commingled rides, but running a service still requires the human touch.
That’s why Via’s tools empower dispatchers to intervene manually and override ViaAlgo’s when needed:
- Manual Assign, for directly assigning a trip from the Unassigned queue to a specific spot within a shift.
- Protect Ride, for indicating that a selected trip should not be moved. This feature ensures ViaAlgo’s Assign AI and Assisted Reassign features will not touch it — but also works as a collaborative tool, for dispatchers to communicate with one another about elements of the Ride Plan that should remain in place.
Here’s how these features work in action: Let’s say that Dispatcher Andrea knows that Lisa prefers to ride with driver Joe. With just a few clicks, she can manually assign Lisa to Joe’s manifest. If manually assigning Lisa’s trip negatively impacts another ride — for example, causing a rider to be picked up outside their requested window, or overfilling a vehicle — ViaAlgo will issue a warning so Andrea can decide what tradeoffs are worth it for the riders and the day’s plan.
The ride above is "protected," as indicated by the pin icon in the Ride Plan and the "protected ride" text in the ride details.
After manually assigning Lisa’s trip, Andrea can use the Protect Ride feature to ensure that Lisa will not be moved from Joe’s manifest as a result of later Ride Plan optimization. Protect Ride places a simple “pin” on the trip (shown above); if other dispatchers later run “Optimize All,” or Auto-Reassign sees a new way to optimize the Ride Plan, Lisa’s trip — and Joe’s shift that contains her trip — will not be touched. And if dispatchers use Assisted Reassign features to move other riders’ trips around, Lisa’s trip will stay right where it is.
- ViaAlgo Introduction: Lower costs while improving service for paratransit
- ViaAlgo’s Routing Engine: Better routing balances increase productivity with reduced time onboard
- ViaAlgo’s Assign AI: Increase efficiency servicewide
- ViaAlgo’s Unassigned Rides: Easily find and dispatch requested trips not yet assigned to drivers
- ViaAlgo’s Reassign Assistant: move today’s trips with guidance from our efficiency-maximizing algorithm
- ViaAlgo’s Manual Assign and Protected Ride features: take control of your service with intuitive manual tools
- ViaAlgo’s Aggregator: Powering efficient, ADA-compliant commingling
