Why record boarding
Many companies contract charter transport based on a list of eligible employees, not on actual use. Over time, the operation changes: people are hired and leave, change address, switch shifts or start driving. The transport stays the same.
Without boarding records, the company cannot answer:
- How many people use each line, at each time?
- Is the vehicle overcrowded or nearly empty?
- Are the planned stops being served?
- Who was transported on the trip the carrier is charging for?
The identified boarding answers these questions.
What an identified boarding is
It is a record with four pieces of information linked to each other:
| Information | Example |
|---|---|
| Passenger | Employee at the Barra site, shift A |
| Stop | Stop 4, Av. Central |
| Schedule | 05:52 |
| Trip | Line 07, direction to the site, 05:40 trip |
Because the record is tied to the trip, it connects with everything else in Merus: route, vehicle, planned × actual and contract.
How it works in practice
- Registration: employees, lines, stops and eligibility rules are loaded by the Merus team together with the company's team.
- Identification: at boarding, the employee identifies themselves by the means defined in the project.
- Association: Merus ties the record to the stop and the trip in progress.
- Lookup: the company sees occupancy by trip, line and time, and the history of each employee.
The means of identification, such as validators or other devices, is chosen in the technical diagnosis, considering the operation, the equipment and privacy.
What the company does with boarding data
Size vehicles
Real occupancy per trip shows where a smaller vehicle will do and where reinforcement is needed. In Merus routing, the company compares vehicles by capacity, fixed cost, cost per kilometer and labor before making a change.
Adjust routes and stops
Stops with no boardings for weeks can be reviewed. Stops with many boardings may need more capacity or another time.
Confirm service
Boardings at stops prove the trip served people, not just that the vehicle passed. This strengthens the independent measurement and the planned versus actual.
Check the invoice
Trips charged with no boarding recorded, or with a vehicle incompatible with the occupancy, deserve review in the operational reconciliation.
Look after the employee experience
Recurring overcrowding and long travel times show up in the data and can be addressed before they become complaints.
Implementation precautions
- Communicate the purpose. Employees need to know why boarding is recorded and how the data is used.
- Define rules for absences. Forgetting or equipment failure should not automatically be treated as an absence.
- Track adoption. In the first weeks, the registration rate shows whether the flow is working.
- Protect the data. Purpose, access and retention are defined in the project, in line with the LGPD.
Identified boarding and reservations
In operations with reservations and allocation, boarding confirms whether the person who reserved actually used the seat. This helps free up seats and plan capacity more precisely.
If the company is still choosing a tool, see the criteria in how to choose charter transport management software.
