West Midlands LTP
Problem
How do several disparate agencies collaborate to deliver a single joint transport plan online?
Brief
Local Transport Plans are the public documents that set out the highway authority's policies, strategies, objectives and targets for improving transport in their communities. They define a five-year strategy, and annual progress reports are filed in each subsequent year. The West Midlands Local Transport Plan is unusual in that it is developed by seven district authorities, along with Centro, the Passenger Transport Authority to the Department for Transport (DfT).
The division of Centro responsible for getting the transport plan published were having issues getting the information published online in a timely manner. This is not surprising as the plan stretches to thousands of Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files. A file-store for discussion documents, meeting minutes and so on was also required, but this was problematic as there are eight organisations with eight different IT systems involved. Apart from this, there was a need to publish not-quite-public information between groups of interested parties. The West Midlands LTP website did not allow for this kind of ad-hoc publishing or document/access control.
Solution
Made Media developed a new website, using our BackStage Content Management System. The website was built with several layers of accessibility and user groups, meaning that files could be published for access by small internal teams, by the general public or by groups somewhere in-between.
The Backstage Content Management System allows for instant publishing of PDF files to the website, and also allows for keyword indexing with an advanced search system.
Files can be published by disparately located groups and the entire permission system dictating who can publish and who can read, is all under Centro's day-to-day control. Getting new information online is now a trivial process and has become a simple, integral part of the job, rather than a slow, complex external effort.
