Transport booking system - DORES

Dores (transport reservation system) for passenger bus services is an innovative tool for on-line booking and sales of seat reservation tickets for individual connections of the passenger bus transport system, permitting not only the convenient and reliable checking of passengers by the driver directly on the bus, but that can be also be utilised by retail partners and commercial units of individual carriers.

Benefits of Dores:

• Advance sale of seat reservation tickets even after the bus has left the station of departure (by means of on-line communication between the bus on the road and the Back Office)
• Easy to operate terminal for the driver, with accurate identification of seats in the bus
• User-friendly when replacing or adding automatic assignments of seats for passengers on a bus on the basis of already issued tickets and seat reservations
• Bulk sales of seat reservation tickets
• Higher revenues due to maximising the utilisation of buses (DORES allows for the "dual" sale of one seat when a passenger with a seat reservation fails to show up)
• Higher level of control and optimisation of the utilisation of buses, due to detailed reports and statistics in the Back Office concerning the sales in each bus

Dores consists of two main sections:

Back Office, with all the necessary functionalities such as the selection of routes, connections, and journeys, bus types, means of payment, planning of journeys, timetables, pricing, booking and selling of seat reservation tickets, cash-office for the receipt of payments, statistics and reports. Access to the system is based on the defined user rights of the operators (authorised personnel of the carrier) and the sellers (internal, by the carrier or external by the sales partner).

The Driver's Terminal, which is located directly in the bus and permits the driver to sell tickets to passengers or to check passengers with pre-purchased seat reservation tickets. The driver's terminal includes an LCD panel, a power supply, a GPRS modem for data transfer with the Back Office, a printer, specialised software application and an optional smart card reader, if the carrier uses a system of prepaid charging and withdrawal of credit.

Connection of Dores to an Internet sales portal:

Seemingly very advantageous for the carrier appears to be the connection between Dores and an Internet sales portal which, in the event of payment by credit card or by RFID smart card (electronic wallet with credit) facilitates the convenient sale of "electronic seats" without the intervention of a human operator and also for the simple establishment of bonus programmes for loyal customers. Both of these lead to a still greater level of efficient utilisation of the capacity of buses on individual routes. Passengers can also book their seats while on the bus using specially coded SMS messages.