Operations Applications Supervisor

Thank you for your interest in joining the team that keeps Charlotte moving, at a very exciting time for our organization. At the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), we’re committed to delivering safe, reliable, and innovative transit services for our growing community, and we value employees who bring professionalism, passion, and a commitment to public service. This position is currently employed by CATS, a department of the City of Charlotte. With the passage of the PAVE Act and last year’s sales tax referendum, CATS is preparing to transition from a City department to the newly created Metropolitan Public Transit Authority (MPTA). The MPTA was established to strengthen regional transit governance, improve accountability, and support long‑term investment in mobility. It’s an important and exciting step forward for transit in our region.  Employees hired into this role will remain City employees through December 31, 2026, and will transition to MPTA employment on January 1, 2027. Benefits and compensation will follow City provisions through 2026 and shift to MPTA provisions in 2027, with clear information shared in advance. Your core duties, reporting structure, and daily responsibilities will remain consistent, with no break in service. If anything delays the transition, your City employment, including compensation and benefits, will remain in place until the move to the MPTA occurs. The creation of the MPTA positions us for a more modern, sustainable, and efficient transit system, one that can better support the Charlotte region for decades to come. We’re excited about what’s ahead and appreciate your interest in being part of it.

SUMMARY

The Operations Applications Supervisor provides technical leadership and supervisory oversight for mission-critical transit software and operational technology applications within the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS). Primary responsibilities include Vontas OnRoute computer-aided dispatch and automatic vehicle location (CAD/AVL), GIRO HASTUS, fare collection technology, and related operational applications.

The position leads application administration, configuration, integration, production support, data management, vendor coordination, and application lifecycle management. The supervisor directs complex troubleshooting, recovery, upgrades, and modernization while coordinating with operational departments and technical teams to maintain reliable service in a 24/7 transit environment.

Working under general direction, this position combines staff supervision with active technical engagement, including evaluating application architecture, data flows, troubleshooting approaches, and proposed solutions.

Major Duties and Responsibilities

Staff Supervision and Team Leadership

• Supervise Application Administrators, Industrial Controls Technicians, and/or technical analysts supporting operations applications.

• Establish application ownership, primary and backup support assignments, priorities, and workloads; plan, assign, and review work.

• Provide technical direction during complex incidents; evaluate troubleshooting approaches, challenge technical conclusions, and review resolution activities.

• Mentor staff, provide performance feedback and evaluations, and support recruitment, onboarding, and development.
• Establish cross-training and technical training requirements to avoid dependence on a single resource; ensure staff follow application support, cybersecurity, incident, problem, change, and release procedures.

Vontas OnRoute and CAD AVL Application Oversight

• Lead OnRoute administration, configuration, monitoring, production support, and dispatch application support to maintain reliable daily bus and/or rail operations.

• Oversee application services, logs, performance, troubleshooting, patches, upgrades, releases, testing, and production validation.
• Manage application databases, interfaces, APIs, data dependencies, recovery procedures, and vendor escalation; support bus Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs).
• Serve as the senior escalation point for OnRoute software issues and coordinate with infrastructure, network, database, cybersecurity, data, and field technology teams.

GIRO HASTUS and Scheduling Application Oversight

• Lead HASTUS administration, configuration, transit planning and scheduling functionality, and service-change application support.

• Oversee upgrades, releases, testing, scheduling data management, validation, integrations, database and application troubleshooting, and vendor escalation.

• Partner with Planning and Scheduling teams to translate operational requirements into reliable application solutions.
• Ensure accurate exchange of scheduling, route, trip, block, run, operator, and related operational data with downstream systems.

Fare Technology and Onboard System Integration

• Provide technical and supervisory oversight for fare collection applications, with primary responsibility for integration with CAD/AVL and other onboard technologies.

• Oversee administration, configuration, monitoring, troubleshooting, testing, upgrades, and lifecycle management of fare applications and interfaces, including fareboxes, validators, and ticket vending machines that interact with CAD/AVL.

• Coordinate fare-system integration across bus, rail, paratransit, customer-facing, and back-office environments as required; support connections to scheduling, vehicle logic units, MDTs, financial systems, customer service, reporting, and data warehouses.

• Validate routes, trips, blocks, runs, stops, vehicle and operator assignments, fare products, rules, passes, transfers, concessions, and reduced-fare programs; synchronize approved fare changes and CAD/AVL configurations before deployment.

• Monitor device communications, application services, transaction processing and files, operational feeds, interfaces, synchronization, and exceptions; troubleshoot farebox, onboard hardware, vehicle communications, operator login, assignment, and GPS-related integration issues.

• Coordinate interface testing during upgrades, vehicle deployments, schedule and fare changes, hardware replacement, and modernization; confirm accurate operational data reaches fare equipment and transaction and operational information returns to central systems.
• Support complete and accurate fare revenue interfaces, reconciliation, transaction reporting, settlement data, and financial integrations; participate in modernization involving open and contactless payments, mobile ticketing, and account-based fare collection.

Application Integration and Data Management

• Ensure reliable integration and synchronized data exchange among HASTUS, OnRoute, fare collection, and other operational and enterprise applications.

• Support APIs, web services, database integrations, middleware, scheduled jobs, message interfaces, and file-based interfaces.

• Monitor and troubleshoot route, stop, trip, block, run, schedule, operator, fare, transaction, General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), and GTFS-Realtime exchanges.
• Coordinate integration testing for changes affecting upstream or downstream systems; maintain application architecture, interface, configuration, dependency, and data-flow documentation.

Production Support and Operational Reliability

• Lead critical incident response affecting CAD/AVL, HASTUS, fare technology, software, configurations, interfaces, databases, transactions, and operational data.

• Analyze logs, services, configurations, databases, transaction processing, and system behavior; coordinate recovery and vendor escalation to restore operations, dispatch, scheduling, fare collection, customer information, and revenue processing.
• Lead root cause analysis, address recurring issues, implement corrective actions, and document resolutions; establish monitoring and alerting requirements...

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business Information Systems, or related field; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Ten (10) years of direct, progressively responsible experience supporting transit software applications and operational technology systems.
• Substantial hands-on experience with Vontas OnRoute CAD/AVL and GIRO HASTUS, or closely comparable CAD/AVL and transit scheduling or planning software in public transportation.
• Significant experience with mission-critical application administration, configuration, production support, troubleshooting, integrations, databases, data management, APIs, testing, upgrades, releases, monitoring, vendor support, and lifecycle management.
• One (1) year of experience leading projects, coordinating teams, or supervising staff.

See application link for COMPLETE job description including all Major Duties & Responsibilities, Core Competencies, Knowledge, Skills & Abilities, Preferred Qualifications and Working Environment & Physical Demands