The Florida Operations Network (FON) members are highly motivated Florida transit operations managers.  The Florida Operations Network (FON) meets quarterly to discuss industry issues, problem-solve, network and institute positive changes in transit on a statewide level. 

The Florida Operations Network (FON), funded and administrated by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), provides support to address maintenance, operations, and administrative issues in transit.  The FON works with the Florida Transit Maintenance Consortium, the FDOT, transit manufacturers and other governmental entities to work toward safe, secure and reliable transit services. 

To request additional information about the FON, please e-mail Amber Reep at reep@cutr.usf.edu.

To subscribe to the FON listserv, please click here.
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In conjunction with the FPTA Annual Conference, the Florida Operations Network will be meeting on Monday, October 20, 2008 at 2:00 pm-3:15pm.  The FON is pleased to have two guest speakers at our meeting presenting on two very interesting topics.  Each presentation will be approximately 15 minutes and our official meeting will follow.  If you have any items you would like added to agenda, please forward them to me by October 14, 2008. 

Common Sense Techniques that Improve the Speed of Fixed Route Buses
Presented by Joel Volinski, Director, National Center for Transit Research

The presentation will demonstrate the time savings associated with operating a bus in fixed route transit, using a number of techniques that almost any transit system can implement.  These techniques can help save 5% or more running time, and allow buses to better stay on schedule, make reliable connections, and avoid the need to add buses on a route to maintain scheduled headways.

BSeT: A Decision Support Tool for Heavy-Duty Transit Buses
Presented by Anthony Ferraro, Research Associate – CUTR Transportation Program Evaluation & Economic Analysis Program (TPEEA)

The objective of this research project was to develop a decision support tool to assist transit agencies with evaluating heavy-duty bus fleets and making vehicle acquisition and deployment choices.  The product of this effort, the Bus Size Evaluation Tool (BSeT), is a user-friendly and easily-modifiable computer application designed within Microsoft Excel.  BSeT comprises a life-cycle cost calculator and a template of weighted factors to help transit agencies select buses by size that are best suited to satisfy their obligations.  The presentation will describe the research effort, detail the process of developing the decision support tool, and demonstrate the use of BSeT.