You can substitute vehicles in Synovia on the Substitutions screen if the vehicles can't perform their usual routes. Making this substitution keeps the Synovia route data current, even though the vehicle has changed, and reports the replacement's route information to Here Comes the Bus, if you have that add-on app. (See the Here Comes the Bus website and the Here Comes the Bus Help documentation for more information.)
Note: On the legacy site (Silverlining), Substitutions was called Slice-N-Dice.
Note: For more information about Comparative Analysis, see An Introduction to Comparative Analysis. For more information about the various features of the Substitutions screen, see Navigating the Substitutions Screen.
The first section below shows how to substitute one vehicle for another if you just need to switch out the vehicle for a single tier. The following section shows how to make the substitution for multiple tiers, or for an entire route, or for an entire itinerary.
Making a Substitution for One Tier
To substitute one vehicle for another for just one tier, follow these steps:
- Click
>> Substitutions.
The Substitutions screen will appear and show all your itineraries, listed by name/number, for today. Each tier will be displayed in its own row. Rows highlighted in yellow are considered at risk (meaning that today's most-recent tier has a start time that's elapsed but the last event time of its current vehicle occurred a certain number of minutes ago — a value specified by your Synovia administrator in Settings).
- Click the From date picker and select the first date of the substitution.
- Click the To date picker and select the last date of the substitution.
- Click
.
The itineraries for the selected date range will appear.
- Find the name of the tier for which you want to substitute a new vehicle.
Note: If necessary, you can sort or filter the Tier or Route column to find the tier. See Sorting and Filtering Column Data for details. - Select the check box at the far left in the row of the tier.
Current Vehicle will become a drop-down list.
- Click the drop-down arrow and select the replacement vehicle from the list.
- Click
at the top right of the screen.
The new vehicle's number will appear in the Current Vehicle column.
Caution: There is no confirmation dialog box. As soon as you click, the substitution is made in the database. The only way to reverse the substitution at this point is to substitute back in the original vehicle. - To export the grid data to PDF or Excel, click the
or 
button at the top right of the screen.
Making a Substitution for Multiple Tiers
To substitute one vehicle for another for multiple tiers (including an entire route or itinerary), follow these steps:
- Click >> Substitutions.
The Substitutions screen will appear and show all your itineraries, listed by name/number, for today. Each tier will be displayed in its own row. Rows highlighted in yellow are considered at risk (meaning that today's most-recent tier has a start time that's elapsed but the last event time of its current vehicle occurred a certain number of minutes ago — a value specified by your Synovia administrator in Settings).
- Click the From date picker and select the first date of the substitution.
- Click the To date picker and select the last date of the substitution.
- Click .
The itineraries for the selected date range will appear.
- Find the itinerary, route, or vehicle name for which you want to substitute a new vehicle and perform one of the following steps, depending on how many tiers you need to include, before continuing on to step 6:
Note: If necessary, you can sort or filter the Tier or Route column to find the tiers. See Sorting and Filtering Column Data for details.- To substitute out an entire itinerary: Click the name of the itinerary in the Itinerary column (not the check box, as you do when making a substitution for one tier). All the tiers of the itinerary will be selected.
- To substitute out just one route of an itinerary: Click the name of the route in the Route column. The tiers for only that route will be selected.
- To substitute out all a vehicle's runs, based on the vehicle instead of the itinerary: Select the vehicle name in the Default Vehicle column. All the tiers that vehicle is assigned to for the day will be selected.
- To substitute out an entire itinerary: Click the name of the itinerary in the Itinerary column (not the check box, as you do when making a substitution for one tier). All the tiers of the itinerary will be selected.
- Click the value in the Current Vehicle column for one of the selected tiers.
Current Vehicle will become a drop-down list.
- Click the drop-down arrow and select the replacement vehicle from the list.
That vehicle will fill all the selected tiers' fields under Current Vehicle.
- Click at the top right of the screen.
Caution: There is no confirmation dialog box. As soon as you click, the substitution is made in the database. The only way to reverse the substitution at this point is to substitute back in the original vehicle.