Spec for new reports to facilitate using a train line for distribution

Software improvement (Archived)
1

Additional OFN reports for Heart of Wales Line (HOWL) reports

The development of the report functionality itself is not urgent but it would be good to get a $ quote and delivery date soon so that this can be included in the funding

Background

  • Black Mountain Food Hub (BMFH) is already in the process of switching over to OFN from a WooCommerce based system which Matt wrote.
  • Matt did some early work on OFN UK and is now back in the UK after time around Europe. He is looking for paid work on the BMFH website developing community forums for recipes, etc.
  • BMFH has a sorting space at Llandeilo station on the HOWL line.
  • There are 31 other stations on the HOWL line (32 in total) which is currently run by Arriva – although this contract is up for re-tender in 2018. Several of the stations are request stops (the train only stops if a passenger requests it/waves at the driver)
  • There are lots of farms, smallholdings and small-scale food processors in communities up and down the HOWL line
  • The HOWL line will be 150 years old in 2018 – big celebrations are planned – it would be good to celebrate new hubs, etc as part of this
  • The HOWL/BMFH sees this reporting need as a long term ‘nice to have’. In the short term they just want to use the HOWL to get food to from the producers to the hubs
  • BMFH/HOWL are applying for funding towards the cost of this development

Need

They need reporting functionality to produce reports to:

  • tell producers
    • what produce to put on the train and
    • at which station it will be taken off
  • tell hubs
    • what orders to take off the train and
    • how to sort it into shopper orders (this is done already)
    • which orders to put on the train to be taken off by shoppers or other hubs at which stations.

Issues

  • There are only 4 trains per day in each direction (north and south).
  • Some hubs are likely to take longer than others to carry out the food sort
  • Maybe the report also needs to say if it is not feasible to use the train if there is the train timetable does not allow some of the transportation/sorting time.
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