Looking back over the programme, Go-Ahead Ireland engineering director Chris Stringer says: "From the outset we have taken a holistic view to information technology knowing that we really needed a single view of everything going on. By introducing the latest digital technologies and integrating all of our systems, the aim is to gain a one-click view of every part of the operation. We're now well-advanced on building a core asset management system that provides company-wide visibility of the status of our assets and, through business analytics, it gives the company a really good insight into the costs of running the fleet." In 2018, it started the programme based around software from Freeway, which was first implemented to manage the fleet of 217 buses. However, that soon spread to 1,100 other assets -ticketing machines, workshop equipment, GPS trackers and an array of facilities-related items. The software schedules inspections and staff use tablets to ID-scan each asset before completing digital reports, ensuring correct procedures are followed and any compliance is in order. To achieve a centralised point of access for all information, integration between different systems is crucial, and the first task was to align the Dublin operation with Go-Ahead at a corporate level, Stringer says, so it integrated Freeway with Go-Ahead's core financial and bus operations systems Oracle and uTrack.
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