Merseytravel

the client's brief

Merseytravel are one of the partners that head up the North West Data Group (NWDG), a collection of North West Local Authorites who work together to process and centralise transport data. The major body of work here was in producing back-end solutions that could read data in a number of formats, run this through internal database systems, and eventually output this in an XML format compliant with the National Public Transport Access Nodes (NaPTAN) format.

There are a number of nuiances only known to transport authorites, such as who owns and maintains transport data when it crosses boundaries (Cross Boundary Services). To this end the partners needed a way not only to standerdise their data, but collaborate around ownership.

our approach

Orange Bus worked closely with developers, and system designers at Merseytravel to create an extranet system that read all of this data, displayed it in meaniful ways, and allowed the partners to work together and ensure that the data was both consistent and correct.

A multi-facetted approach was employed and we developed tools and applications to read this data, store it in Microsfoft SQL Server, schemas to support this storage, interfaces to securely allow users to view and update, and finally extract this data, validate and deliver NaPTAN XML data eventually feeding into Transport Direct.

A quote taken directly from Traveline data information site:

The North West Data Group leads the way in showing how data brokerage can be done on the web.