DONETSK NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY Project (written version) Credit Assignment # 2 “The problems of the “Citibus” (bus operating company) and their possible solutions. Drawing a contract.” By: Arustomjan Nona Chukhno Sergey Dubovitsky Roman Feofilaktova Yevgenja Shashkova Lilja Donetsk 2002 First of all, in order to cope with any problem we’ve faced, we should get to know its symptoms and only after these we could define exactly what this or that problem is, what the nature and the essence of problem is. In our caes we’re given the symptoms, they are the following: 1) Fares are too high 2) Bus stops are not conviniently placed 3) Bus stops are infrequent 4) Buses are delayed in traffic james 5) Buses are dirty 6) Buses finish at midnight 7) Timetable is difficult to get 8) Buses are overcrowded 9) Occasionally buses break down 10) Some areas are not well-served by buses So, our team considers the symptoms listed above to be symptoms of three problems: a) shortage of buses (symptoms 1, 3, 8, 10); the main underlying cause of this problem is trivial and prosy enough – this is money b) the second problem is unsuccessful municipal transport policy (symptoms 2, 4, 10): we regard the causes of this problem as follows: firstly, as the transport charges are high, the city administration doesn’t have enough money to change the cituation for better (increase the passing capacity of the roads that doesn’t cope with the growing number of cars and other carriers, build new roads and rearrange the traffic within the city in general); another highly probable reason is that the city administration doesn’t show the proper interest and enough initiative in solving this particular problem; 3) and the last but not the least problem is the problem of low organization and management within the “Citibus”company (the symptoms 5, 6, 7, 9, 10): into our opinion, it has some causes: first of all, the drivers of the company are not highly motivated and consequently they do not do their best, other thing which should be mentioned is the wrong schedule of the bus routes (which doesn’t take a proper account of the interests of the passengers); and finally, its the faults of PR Department (the schedule is difficult to get). We should find the possible solutions of at least one problem. From our point of view, there’re two reasons of giving the priority to the third problem. First, because the basic cause of its probleme is motivation, and, anyway, we consider the level of motivation to play the key role in any activity you’re engaged. The second reason is that problem is the most solvable for us because as we are short of more we couldn’t afford themselves to buy the ample quantity of new buses or carry out the major repairs the buses we have. Corncerning the second problem, we don’t consider themselves to be influential enough to change much the transport municipal policy so the only way for us is to try to cope with the last problem. As you know, for changing the cituation for better and partly solving the problem it is neccessary to eliminate at least one cause. So we’ll try to remove such cause as the lack of motivation of Citibus’ drivers which is supposed to be the most important one (because as the drivers aren’t highly motivated they aren’t interested much in such things as keeping the cleanness of their buses, maintenance of its technical conditions, being consistent with the bus schedule, being inetrested in making as many scheduled and unscheduled runs as possible and making the trip as comfortable as possible). The first way of solving this probleme is to organize the following acion: first, we’ll print the colored tickets with red, yellow and green stripes. Then we’ll install the special voting boxes in each autobus and then we’ll inform the passengers about conditions of our action: you can assess you trip. In order to do it you should just tear up the colored from your ticket and throw it to the voting box. Each of the three colors means the following: red - “The trip was something terrible”, yellow – “The trip was so-so”, and finally green – “The trip was really great”. We shall inform about the action the drivers as well. At the end of each month we’ll calculate how many stripes of tjose or that colour each driver has got, those who has got a lot of green stripes and only few red will be rewarded (fringe benefits, some touristic trips). So we think that the busmen will be motivated to try hard in order to get the passengers feel really comfortanle during the trip. So the documents we offer you are the special colred tickets. The second way of increasing the motivation of our drivers is to organize the competition among the drivers, lets name it “The golden helm”. First, we should make the drivers informed about it. Then we’ll organize a jury who will monitor and assess the work of the drivers during, for example, a month. Then the jury will sum it up and according to their decision some best drivers will be rewarded and, vice versa, the worst ones will be fined or even fired. But the most effective and efficient strategy is to make a contract whick will determine the rights and obligations of both parties: the administration of the “Citibus”operating company and its drivers and which will give a spur to the drivers. Firstly, we should draw a contract and then discuss its terms and conditions with the drivers, so we’ll determine exactly the duties and responsabilities of both parties. Into our opinion they will be the following: a) the drivers warrant to be consistent with the schedule of routes b) drivers are to keep the cleanness of the buses c) drivers are to carry out corrective maintenance and current repairs if it’s possible or report immediately about any technical troubles and malfuctions d) drivers are obliged not to start either unscheduled or scheduled run if there are any technical troubles with a bus e) drivers are to pay citibus a fixed amount of money per week which varies with certain routs f) CITIBUS is to make a survey in order to define what routes are more profitable g) CITIBUS warrants to transfer the more efficient, diligent and experienced drivers from less profitable routs to more profitable ones h) On the contrary, CITIBUS warrants to put irresponsible drivers on the less profitable routs* As the third step we assure that both parties have had the opportunity to have this contract reviewed by their attorney (in order to avoid any infringement of the Labour Code or any other laws of Ukraine and to make this document has a legal effect). On the next stage both parties sign the contract and we think that the drivers are enough motivated, they fulfil the terms and the conditions of the contract and the problem is solved. * - for full written version of the contract see enclosure1 So to sum it up, we would to say that the question of motivation is always of crucial importance so we’ve decided to try to increase the level of motivation of the Citibus’ drivers. We consider the measures of increasing the level of motivation to be successful and we’re sure that they’re not expensive, so we think we’ll at least . strategy is to make a contract whick will determine the rights and obligations of both parties: the administration of the “Citibus operating company and. DONETSK NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY Project (written version) Credit Assignment # 2 The problems of the “Citibus” (bus operating company) and their possible