Mexico’s Traxión Uses FICO Optimization To Save Tons of Emissions

Optimization to improve the bottom line and save the planet

Traxión, the leading mobility and logistics company in Mexico, has used FICO route optimization technology to help it use fewer vehicles, save on fuel costs, cut emissions and reduce fleet wear and tear. The company has already saved 2.9 million kilometers in travel, USD$725,000 in costs and 458 metric tons of emissions after implementing just 11% of the optimal solution. Traxión is on track to reduce empty trips by 20 percent which will save it over 10 million kilometers, USD$2.5M in costs and an impressive 1,580 metric tons of emissions once its operations are fully optimized.

Traxión was able to see a rapid return on investment by implementing the optimization capability within FICO® Platform, a cloud-based decisioning platform that allows companies to centralize and operationalize advanced analytics at speed.

“Designing our logistics planning based on an algorithm was a turning point in the way the company operates,” said Vicente Quiroga Garcia, director of operational excellence at Traxión. “Our team now has all the tools and techniques needed to conduct a large amount of analysis using various scenarios and generate the best route — one that is transparent, fair, and much more efficient in the allocation of units, operators, and kilometers.”

You can read more about this story in the full media release.

From spreadsheets to advanced analytic solutions

Prior to the implementation, Traxión ’s business leaders knew that the spreadsheet-based program they were using to develop routes and schedules was falling short, as shown by the large number of “deadhead” kilometers; travel by trucks and buses without a cargo or passenger load.

In addition, the spreadsheet macros were often difficult to use, and did not allow for easy integration of new rules and constraints. This was a significant disadvantage during the COVID-19 pandemic, as protocols regarding vehicle disinfection plus physical distancing among employee groups frequently changed the number of routes required.

The optimization of transportation logistics at Traxión was a complex undertaking. An accurate and efficient schedule was needed to fairly distribute workloads for drivers and comply with labor agreements regarding shift length and workdays per week. The solution also needed to meet specific customer requirements, such as driver experience, vehicle features such as air conditioning, and the possibility of applying the customer logo or branding to the bus.

Optimization also needed to account for unforeseeable complications, such as vehicle breakdowns and traffic delays, that impact routing and need to be resolved quickly. At the heart of all these factors is the “Rubik’s Cube” of the routes themselves.

“In the initial phase of the FICO solution integration, Traxión deployed 700 buses from two depots in a municipality to cover 3,300 service routes,” said Garcia. “The second phase was more complex, expanding to 21 municipalities.”

Gradual change is best

Importantly, when it came to implementation at Traxión the route changes needed to be gradual. Just because an optimization solution can be modelled, does not mean that it can be deployed 100% overnight.

“Drivers pick up passengers, not packages, so passengers need to know the driver and they need to know where to go every week,” added Garcia. “To accommodate this very real human aspect we created a threshold parameter that business users applied to avoid dramatic schedule changes. Schedules were optimized by say, five percent a week, until they reached a point where the solution was 100% optimal.”

So far, Traxión has deployed eleven percent of the optimization solution to 16 out of 19 units. This includes 5,953 buses and 176,109 total services. The largest unit has 19,000 services. At this level of optimization, the Traxión team has already saved 2.9M kilometers.

ESG benefits from solving a complex problem

The advances in optimization are also contributing significantly to Traxión’s emissions reductions, with 458 metric tons of emissions saved after implementing just 11% of the optimal solution and 1,580 metric tons of emissions expected once its operations are fully optimized. Every kilometer driven by a bus takes 30 cars out of operation, so with a fleet of 6,200 efficiently routed buses, 186,000 cars are kept off the roads saving 1.6 million metric tons of emissions.

“In less than a year, Traxión has improved analytic efficiency and speed to insights by 80 percent,” said Nikhil Behl chief marketing officer at FICO. “This has enabled them to make remarkable improvements while responding to pandemic conditions, which is quite the feat. Their work with optimization shows the potential of FICO’s prescriptive analytics to help firms meet ESG goals and make the world healthier.”

For its achievements, Traxión won a 2022 FICO® Decisions Award for ESG Champion.

“The problem that Traxión was trying to solve was very complex,” said Sheila Leverone, chief marketing officer at eDriving and one of the FICO Decisions Awards judges. “There are a multitude of factors that go into a transportation network optimization such as this. It was obvious that there was some careful thinking by Traxión around the operational considerations and the incremental approach needed to move towards the optimal solution.”

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