Transport for Wales
6 min
Digital channels are an important element of the customer experience. We are on a journey to transform travel across Wales and its borders, and digital is an area where we can make fast progress. This is why we are pleased to be working with DCX, who share our vision of intuitive and connected customer experience.
Colin Lea, Commercial and Customer Experience Director, Transport for Wales Rail Services
What our client needed
Following the award of the Wales and Borders rail franchise to Transport for Wales in 2018, the train operating company partnered with DCX to design and build a new website.
With a hard deadline agreed for the franchise handover, the new platform had to be delivered in under 10 weeks.
The new franchise set out to meet ambitious objectives and create new standards within the rail industry - providing quality services across the entire customer experience, from journey planning to station access.
Being the main customer-facing online presence, Transport for Wales’ website needed to promote the service and enable the retail of tickets to customers online. It needed to provide real-time information on departures and arrivals, as well as any disruption to services through multiple feeds, integrated into the site. It also needed to allow customers to book tickets and manage their purchase journeys online, through the integration with a third-party booking engine.
What we gave them
As with all new franchise mobilisations, there were multiple challenges to overcome, most notably the hard deadline for the handover to Transport for Wales, as well as delivering the website in Welsh and English.
After initial scoping meetings, we pulled together a roadmap of activity. Our knowledge and expertise of the transport sector meant that we were able to run a condensed, hybrid version of our usual discovery and definition phases, before moving to design, development and deployment.
Drupal, the digital experience platform hosted by Acquia, was chosen as the CMS for the project. This open-source CMS gave the Transport for Wales team the freedom and flexibility to customise elements and rapidly deploy updates, making them self-sufficient in managing their website beyond the initial scope of work.
The project was delivered out of the DCX Acquia practice, supported by a full-service team of strategists, UX, designers, developers, and QA. Alongside Drupal, AWS Cloud infrastructure was implemented, providing limitless flexibility around development and high platform availability.
What was the impact
As a brand new franchise, it was difficult to compare results with the previous company who managed the Wales and Border route. Yet, when benchmarked against other train operating companies in the UK, Transport for Wales is in an extremely strong position with its new digital destination website.
Transport for Wales won Silver for Best Website in the much-coveted UK Digital Experience Awards, and was named a finalist in the Transport, Leisure & Tourism category, but the major increases in traffic to the website also speak for themselves.
- 1m increase in unique users
- 3m increase in page views
- 65% increase in mobile users
Now, the focus is on providing a fully managed service to support and continually optimise the platform by using data and analytics to drive insight and improve results even further.