Introduction
To meet the demands of post-COVID ridership growth, the Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) needed to expand their services while navigating many significant challenges at once:
- Ongoing driver hiring and retention challenges limited their ability to scale operations
- Loss of key experienced schedulers left the internal team understaffed and lacking in critical scheduling expertise
- The agency was operating under significant financial pressure
Audit Sparks Action
To address these issues and unlock the full value of scheduling within their agency, CDTA opened its doors to CSched and initiated a comprehensive audit to identify areas for potential improvement. The audit reviewed every aspect of their scheduling including departmental structure, roles and responsibilities, business processes and tasks. The results of the audit informed a robust set of 56 recommendations for CDTA, ranging from targeted adjustments to larger-scale revamps.
CDTA was faced with two possible paths: gradually build internal capacity and slowly apply best practices or start from a blank slate to fundamentally rethink scheduling processes. They chose the
latter. While more demanding and requiring greater support, this approach offered the opportunity for deeper, but more lasting change. Partnering with CSched, the agency launched a pilot project that granted full “carte blanche” access to revamp schedules in one of their main divisions in Albany.
This case study illustrates how CDTA’s decision to rebuild from the ground up through a blank slate approach unlocked measurable and ongoing service improvements within one year of pilot launch.
Objective
Fast-track Improvements
The first objective was to rapidly implement and test the audit recommendations within a single division before scaling them agency‑wide. By proving the model at one division and demonstrating measurable gains, CDTA reduced risk and built confidence for broader deployment.
Unlock the Full Potential of Scheduling
The second objective was to rebuild scheduling processes from the ground up to create a more resilient and effective system that optimized the use of resources without disrupting day-to-day operations.
About CDTA
The Capital District Transportation Authority is a regional public transportation organization dedicated to providing safe, reliable, and efficient transit services to the Capital Region of New York State. CDTA operates divisions for bus operations in six cities.
In Albany, their fixed-route and commuter services include:
- 18.5 million rides per year
- 74 bus routes
- 286 fixed-route vehicles, with a total fleet of 414
- 450 bus operators