Digital Platforms for ScotRail

ScotRail

The brief

ScotRail needed an open source digital experience platform, capable of integrating multiple complex industry data feeds and APIs, that could service a diverse range of user groups and stakeholders. 

The requirements included:

  • Systems for Smartcard and account management. These had to work responsively across devices and screen sizes
  • Seamless integration with a number of third party systems, including three white label ticket booking engines, live train information, and interactive network maps
  • New APIs and widgets to be available to third parties
  • The capability to grow with the needs of the organisation
  • Cost effective performance and high availability hosting

What we did

Because of ScotRail's complex requirements, we chose to build the site using Drupal, renowned for its flexibility and focus on security.

Our team worked closely with ScotRail staff to create the first version of the site in 2015. We also helped develop analytics, SEO, CRO, and other digital services for the entire Digital Experience Platform (DXP) and delivered an Android and iOS mobile application.

Our AWS experts set up high availability hosting to handle high traffic and ensure 99.99% uptime (for more information about our hosting services, visit our hosting page)

The result

The website site was significantly more robust, faster, more accessible and visually appealing, and delivered seamless integration with third-party systems, including white label ticket booking engines, live train information, and interactive network maps.

Since the launch, we have continued to work with ScotRail to develop additional modules to support marketing, sales, and customer service teams, including further integrations with industry partners and the mobile application. The Drupal platform has proven to be scalable and adaptable and continues to support ScotRail's evolving needs.

Scotrail website

Technology

  • Drupal 7, 9 and 10
  • PHP 8.x
  • Javascript
  • React

Hosted in AWS and utilising the Enterprise Cloudflare WAF/CDN

  • EC2s
  • Redis ElastiCache
  • Aurora Serverless SQL DB
  • S3 Buckets
  • ElasticSearch
  • AWS Guard Duty, AWS Inspector, AWS Macie, AWS Config and other security tools
  • New Relic Agents for monitoring application and infrastructure performance and for alerting on baseline violations.