Site Purpose
The transport system of the Greater Wellington region comprises over 100 bus routes, 5 rail lines, a harbour ferry service, and an iconic cable car line. Totaling 1.2 million services a year, residents and visitors to the region require a easy way to access routes, timetables, fares, news, and service disruption notices. Wellington is well known in New Zealand as having the country's most loyal public transport users, so this website is key to the daily lives of many Wellingtonians.
What We Did
- Ported the website from an aging platform to the SilverStripe CMS, as the first stage of a multi-year plan to enhance the website. The new site launched December 2009.
- Performed a major visual design and information architecture overhaul of the website. A thorough usability process was undertaken, with members of the public visiting our offices to provide user feedback. An external consultancy, Optimal Usability, also contributed to the usability process.
- Integrated the website with existing journey-planning and timetabling software. Data from this software is queried in real time or cached depending on the nature of that data.
- Optimised the homepage to carry out the top three tasks identified. (How to get from A to B? When is my next bus? How much will my trip cost?)
- Redesigned key pages to reduce the time it takes for the public to get the information they want. For example, searching on how to build a journey now displays route numbers, fares, maps on a single page.
- Migrated maps from non-interactive and hard-to-read to the familiar, interactive, easy-to-understand Google maps.
- Implemented a high degree of WC3 accessibility and adherence to Government Web Standards and Guidelines.
- Helped Metlink IT staff deploy the PHP-based solution in Metlink's production environment comprising Windows Server 2008, IIS 7, and SQL Server 2008. This allowed reuse of Metlink's current in-house experience of Microsoft technology and investment in infrastructure.
- Provided Metlink staff with in-person CMS user training.
What Users Can Do Now
- Perform common tasks in less time, with less difficulty, and in fewer steps.
- More easily bookmark pages that interest them; pages on the new website are addressable and use a logical naming convention.
- Better understand transport routes because they are mapped much more clearly and can be interacted with.
- Use RSS feeds to subscribe to news, or to service alterations to the transport routes they choose.
Success Factors
- Metlink staff can update content that shows on the site within seconds, rather than hours.
- Non-technical Metlink staff find it easier to update the website.
- A single production server operates the website with low CPU server load (Typical daily average: 3000 visitors; 23,000 page views; 2.2GB traffic.)
- Work done for the council was contributed back into the open source SilverStripe CMS project.
- Metlink staff are pleased with the work. Peter Glensor, Chair of Greater Wellington's Transport and Access Committee says,
"The new site is part of Greater Wellington's investment in the public transport network. Getting more people to use public transport more often is imperative for our region's environmental and economic wellbeing. People will choose to use public transport, instead of their cars, if the system is reliable and convenient. Clear, easily accessible and reliable information is an integral part of a high-quality public transport network. I'm delighted that the new Metlink site delivers on that score. The new website is simple, quick and easy to use and a vast improvement on the old website."
- Public feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with numerous people commenting on how the website makes it easier to find the information they want.
Note: The Greater Wellington Regional Council website at gw.govt.nz was also redesigned and rebuilt by SilverStripe Ltd in 2009.
