Collections uses MapMechanics tools to set standard for agent travel planning

“Collections” is the brand name now being used by Collect Services, one of Britain ’s leading firms of enforcement agents, for a software package it has built up in association with MapMechanics for planning the movements of its agents round the country from day to day.

In its new guise the package is now more powerful and configurable than ever before. According to Collect Services’ ICT director, Neil Walters: “We are setting the standard for efficient management of agents’ travel patterns. We’ve actually brought the system to a point where we can offer it to other enforcement specialists.”

Behind Collections lies the combined know-how of Collect Services itself and MapMechanics, a leading supplier of computer mapping and digital data, routing and scheduling systems and geographic information systems.

First supplied by MapMechanics in the early 1990s, the system was substantially revised three years ago, bringing benefits such as a 30 per cent reduction in fuel used by Collect Services’ teams of enforcement agents, plus a 45 per cent saving in staff costs. The latest developments take it on to the next level.

Under its new branding of Collections, the system continues to harness two core technologies from MapMechanics – GeoConcept, the widely-used GIS, and TruckStops, the world’s most extensively-deployed routing and scheduling system.

At its heart, the system enables a staff member called a “route allocator” to create journeys for enforcement agents on screen maps, then transfer the data to TruckStops for automatic scheduling.

In the early days the mapping element was used mainly to group call points together interactively on screen for subsequent scheduling by TruckStops, However, in its latest incarnation Collections makes much more active use of the mapping capabilities of GeoConcept – both operationally, for planning and managing agent journeys, and strategically, for analysis of work patterns and client presentations.

For instance, when planning or reviewing job progress, the company can use colour coding or differentiating symbols on screen maps to identify the stage each job has reached (first call, follow-up and so on). This has introduced extra efficiency to the operation, Neil Walters says, since calls can be monitored and prioritised much more readily.

The company has also been developing new ways of analysing its data in a geographical context. One example is for performing statistical analysis on “gone away” addresses, and presenting the data to customers in a way that is easy to understand.

GeoConcept allows the company to view both current and historic data, and this has also proved invaluable for density analysis, helping the company in tracking down vehicles that may need to be recovered.

The company now has vans equipped with closed-circuit cameras that can be trained on vehicles parked at the roadside. These can identify the registration marks of such vehicles automatically, working on the basis of information stored in an on-board database system.

Presentation features among other recent advances. For instance, the company now prints out hard copies of the enforcement agent schedules produced in GeoConcept, along with lists of calls. It is also developing the ability to print out maps with call points marked in the order TruckStops has decided they should be visited. “This will be an invaluable tool for reviewing performance and fine-tuning the planning process,” Neil Walters says.

The next stage of evolution will involve transferring route plans to in-car navigation systems to help drivers further in finding their way between calls.

Collections has brought ground-breaking new power to the task of planning journeys by enforcement agents. For instance, the home addresses of agents can be used as the start and end points of agents’ journeys, saving the need to plan routes from fixed bases.

By using resources such as Code-Point geocoding, which is good at pinpointing the exact location of each call point, the system can usually place addresses on the correct side of the street – ideal for saving agents from having to cross and re-cross main roads, or revisit the same street more than once unnecessarily.

A feature called “sweep” allows the company to plan journeys that include the whole of a target area (west London , for instance), and will shade the map a different colour to show which parts have been allocated so far. It is also possible to include “flags” to show the date of the last visit to any given location and the name of the agent who called. “This is invaluable for ensuring regular visits and providing improved information,” Neil Walters says.

“It’s hard now to imagine how we could plan our agents’ movements without the Collections system,” he says. “It has become an integral feature of our whole operating strategy.”

Collect Services is one of Britain ’s longest-established and most efficient enforcement agencies, handling many tasks that used to be dealt with by bailiffs. Its daily call rate per enforcement agent is well over fifty – nearly three times the national average of 23 calls. The company is based at Ickenham, west of London , and handles around 150,000 instructions a year with a team of 18 enforcement agents.