Track: Operations Management

Abstract

The study focused on simulation of bus ticket sales operations of a company in South Africa using Arena software to evaluate the operations efficiencies and identify areas of improvement based on the modelling results. Structured interviews were first conducted over a period of two days where 97 ticket buyers were interviewed as population. 54.64% used buses for travelling to and from work , 26.80% used buses to purchase household items and 18.56% purchased tickets to visit friends and family. Furthermore, 88.66% of the population were employed full time at their workplaces , thus relying on bus for travelling to and from work as 59.79% did not own cars  meanwhile 40.21% owned cars but relied on bus to travel to work daily for the purpose of reducing costs associated with purchasing of fuel to travel with their own cars. Purchasing of bus tickets on weekends was preferred by 50.52% , 35.05% preferred between Monday and Friday, while 6.19% preferred purchasing any day. Furthermore, bus ticket sales were also assessed to be sold online, however, only 8.25% preferred purchase online while 91.75 preferred purchase onsite. Simulation of 8 hours operations indicated a potential of 53 number of bus ticket sales compared to actual average of 44 sold. Thus, this indicated 20.45% potential increase. An improvement scenario of operating time increases by 5.5 hours to make up 13.5-hour operations indicated a potential of ticket sales to 89 which is 67.92% increase of the 53-ticket sales potential on the current operating time. Furthermore, teller 2 on counter 2 from the current 8 hours operations and 13.5 hours operations indicated to be less utilized while counter 1 is utilized though processing lower ticket purchases. Teller 2 on counter 2 potentially contributed  54.72% and 52.22% in 8 hours and 13.5 hours  ticket sales output compared to teller 1 on counter 1 who contributed 45.28% and 47.78% respectively.  It was further concluded that increasing the current  8-hour operating time by 68.75% can potentially increase ticket sales by 69.81%, though additional assessment should be carried out such as financial evaluation to pay for the extra shift associated with increase in ticket sales. The study focused on simulation of bus ticket sales operations of a company in South Africa using Arena software to evaluate the operations efficiencies and identify areas of improvement based on the modelling results. Structured interviews were first conducted over a period of two days where 97 ticket buyers were interviewed as population. 54.64% used buses for travelling to and from work , 26.80% used buses to purchase household items and 18.56% purchased tickets to visit friends and family. Furthermore, 88.66% of the population were employed full time at their workplaces , thus relying on bus for travelling to and from work as 59.79% did not own cars  meanwhile 40.21% owned cars but relied on bus to travel to work daily for the purpose of reducing costs associated with purchasing of fuel to travel with their own cars. Purchasing of bus tickets on weekends was preferred by 50.52% , 35.05% preferred between Monday and Friday, while 6.19% preferred purchasing any day. Furthermore, bus ticket sales were also assessed to be sold online, however, only 8.25% preferred purchase online while 91.75 preferred purchase onsite. Simulation of 8 hours operations indicated a potential of 53 number of bus ticket sales compared to actual average of 44 sold. Thus, this indicated 20.45% potential increase. An improvement scenario of operating time increases by 5.5 hours to make up 13.5-hour operations indicated a potential of ticket sales to 89 which is 67.92% increase of the 53-ticket sales potential on the current operating time. Furthermore, teller 2 on counter 2 from the current 8 hours operations and 13.5 hours operations indicated to be less utilized while counter 1 is utilized though processing lower ticket purchases. Teller 2 on counter 2 potentially contributed  54.72% and 52.22% in 8 hours and 13.5 hours  ticket sales output compared to teller 1 on counter 1 who contributed 45.28% and 47.78% respectively.  It was further concluded that increasing the current  8-hour operating time by 68.75% can potentially increase ticket sales by 69.81%, though additional assessment should be carried out such as financial evaluation to pay for the extra shift associated with increase in ticket sales.