Tài liệu Project (written version):“The problems of the “Citibus” (bus operating company) and their possible solutions. Drawing a contract.” doc

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