Nahverkehrsservice Sachsen-Anhalt GmbH (NASA) is a central organisation for local public transport in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt. Founded in 1997, it coordinates and develops regional local rail passenger transport (SPNV). NASA is responsible for the planning, financing and quality control of regional rail passenger transport and works closely with transport companies. Its aim is to offer attractive and sustainable local transport that meets the mobility needs of the population. It also relies on modern technologies and innovations to continuously improve local transport and make it more environmentally friendly. NASA has three TYPO3 websites, which we manage as a TYPO3 agency: www.insa.de,www.mein-takt.de and www.nasa.de.
Since the 1990s, NASA GmbH has offered passengers the opportunity to actively participate in the development of local transport in Saxony-Anhalt and responds to the concerns of its customers. Originally, this participation took the form of passenger advisory boards, where customers could express their opinions and suggestions in meetings. The passenger forum was introduced to modernise this format. Here, registered users can put forward and discuss ideas and suggestions. NASA GmbH initially used a ready-made forum solution. However, this increasingly reached its limits. New interactive functions such as surveys could not be added, the corporate design could not be taken into account, the forum was almost impossible to use on mobile devices and the backend was also difficult for the editorial team to understand. In the end, NASA GmbH decided to change provider and system. And this is where we came into play with our TYPO3 expertise and our experience with forums through the construction of the neighbourhood portal lej-nachbarn.de for the Central German Airports.
Following a workshop with the client, the requirements for the new forum and the various functions of the forum were precisely defined for the launch and further development. We also created a web design for the forum adapted to the corporate design of NASA GmbH, which follows the mobile first approach and thus does justice to the primarily mobile use of the forum.
The basis of the new passenger forum consists of a TYPO3 incl. Bootstrap Starter Package. Probably the most important extension in the project is the community extension pforum, which provides numerous basic forum functions and integrates them into TYPO3. In order to fully map the requirements of the forum, this extension was extended by other small extensions developed in-house.
We also rely on tried and tested community extensions such as sf_register for user registration, felogin for the user account and news for managing news articles. We also developed two extensions for single sign-on registration and login with Google and Apple, which enable forum users to register in the forum with their existing Google and Apple accounts. Of course, we also supported the customer with the necessary settings in their Google and Apple business accounts.
During development, the current development status was continuously shared with the customer and evaluated in order to really fulfil the customer's wishes. An editorial manual written specifically for the forum explains exactly how to create new topics, archive old ones, pull statistics, edit users and trigger mailings. Together with the intuitive TYPO3 backend, the customer can take over almost all administrative tasks in the forum himself and is no longer dependent on the support of developers.
Functions and enhancements
The new passenger forum has numerous standard forum functions, but has also been customised in many places to meet the individual needs of the customer. The forum offers users and the editorial team the following functions:
Data protection-compliant registration with e-mail address, Google login or Apple login
Users can register in the forum as normal with an e-mail address and user name, including the mandatory double opt-in procedure. A quick single sign-on registration and login with Google and Apple is also possible
Own user account with profile and subscription management
In their own user account, forum users can manage their subscription settings for general notifications and subscriptions, view a list of their subscribed ideas, change their profile data and delete their profile.
Topics, ideas, comments
The main components of the forum were customised both in the frontend and the backend in line with the individual wording and process of the passenger forum. Two to three times a year, NASA GmbH opens a topic as a basis for discussion, where users can publish ideas for improving local transport and in turn comment on these ideas and express their opinions.
Topic management and archiving
For each topic, you can set whether ideas and comments should be published immediately or whether they must first be checked by the editorial team. Closed topics can also be closed and archived.
Subscription function
In order not to miss anything in the forum, users can subscribe to entire topics or individual ideas. They will be informed by e-mail when new ideas and comments are posted
Star rating for ideas
The forum is designed to collect feedback from passengers. Of course, there should also be a rating function for the individual ideas so that the best ones can be selected and used to improve local transport.
Activity stream
For a quick introduction to the current topics, a stream has been developed on the start page of the forum, which displays the three latest ideas, comments and news.
Mailings
Editors can trigger mailings via the backend to inform users who have agreed to these notifications about new news and a new topic.
News
NASA GmbH publishes announcements, news and appeals in short news items, which are published for each topic.
Statistics
A statistics tool has been added to the backend for internal analyses as well as for various competitions, which helps the editorial team to identify particularly important topics, for example.
Thanks to the successful implementation of the project, NASA GmbH benefits from numerous improvements and new opportunities:
Expanded customer participation:
The new online forum makes it possible to address a broad customer base, allowing NASA GmbH to collect diverse feedback and valuable feedback. The lower threshold for participation and engaging design encourage higher participation.
Ease of use:
In contrast to the old forum, the new one impresses with its high level of user-friendliness, intuitive operation and mobile-friendly design. This has reduced barriers and increased participation.
Improved functions and interactivity:
New and optimised functions such as the subscription function and star ratings increase user interactivity and participation. GDPR-compliant user management and flexible notification settings offer users more control and transparency.
Efficient moderation and management system:
The practical manual and intuitive backend operation enable the NASA editorial team to handle almost all administrative tasks in the forum themselves.
Recognisability through uniform corporate design
The design of the new passenger forum immediately signals to the user that they belong to NASA GmbH and creates an important and trust-promoting recognition value.
Comprehensive analysis options:
A user and activity dashboard enables detailed evaluations over different time periods, which contributes to better analysis and optimisation of the forum. Statistics and reports help to measure the effectiveness of the campaigns and plan future strategies.
Overall, NASA GmbH has created a modern, efficient and user-friendly platform for passenger participation through this project, which offers numerous benefits to both customers and the company itself. In addition, the flexible TYPO3 system offers plenty of scope for planned extensions, such as surveys, social media integrations and competitions.
