Real-time – or ‘live’ – travel information is part of an improved customer experience for both the modern public transport operator and the highway authority. Changing technology has not only improved the quality of real-time information but offers new methods of delivering the information to the customer in the most useful way.
QR codes offer an easy to use, low cost method of communicating the facility and delivering the information to the smart-phone user.
Wokingham Borough Council commissioned Public Impact, which has a strong track record in a number of live travel information projects, to create an awareness campaign promoting the use of individual QR codes placed at bus stops.
“A QR code is simply a two-dimensional bar code that can be scanned by a smart phone app which in this case decodes to a web address that displays departure information for bus services for that stop. Once scanned the QR code can be saved as a bookmark for future use from anywhere. So the bus traveller at home can check how services are running for their journey, and can save any number of codes for stops on their regular journeys, enabling them to check the service for anywhere – of at least from anywhere with network reception!”, says Public Impact Creative Director, Jane Coney.
Public Impact responded to the brief by delivering a QR code real time information awareness campaign using a combination of bus stop poster advertising incorporating stop-specific QR codes and door-to-door leaflet drops at approximately 400m distances of the bus routes across two localities within the borough.
Since roll-out of the codes, monitoring of usage data has shown a 750% month on month uplift in traffic to the website via mobile devices and tablets, directly attributable to the inclusion of the codes. It is an exciting result and shows how transport systems can benefit from simple, user-focussed technology solutions. The campaign required only a modest budget funded from the Borough’s LSTF grant.
QR codes can work with any real-time updates, anywhere: train stations, bus stops, department store sales, live events, restaurant and entertainment specials or airline booking as well as many more static applications.