Woodward I.T. Customers: Brisbane's Airtrain

Woodward IT is a partner of:

July 2008: A year after creating the first version of the Airtrain web site, Woodward IT was responsible for developing the latest reincarnation of the site. http://www.airtrain.com.au

The web site needed to reflect the latest Airtrain marketing campaign, so was reinvented with new interactive features to attract visitors to the site and keep them there.

One of the new features of the web site was to list the current greenhouse gas emissions that had been saved by people using the Airtrain. The site now lists the current savings for the previous day, current month and year, all from hundreds of thousands of tickets sold.

June 2008: Woodward IT was hired as a consultant to advise Airtrain during the period when the go card in Brisbane was being rolled out. Previously all ticket and financial information had come from QR. This was going to change as go card transaction data would now be coming from a different source in a different format. There was also the issue that virtually every report in TABS had to be modified to integrate go card trip data.

During this period, Woodward IT was responsible for:

Attending testing meetings with Translink and QR
Advising Airtrain management on the go card progress
Testing the Airtain specific trial data
Writing a reformatter for the new trip format
Automating a nightly download of trip data from a Translink sFTP site
Integrating the go card data into TABS

November 2007: Version 2.5 of TABS was released, which featured a series of changes that were born from the need to have advanced reporting. As a lot of information was now at Airtrain's fingertips, they soon discovered what was possible from a cleverly designed database and cashed in.

The major functions included in this release were:

Financial transaction tracking was added to reservations
Addtional non-rail products were added
Offline sales report
The deemed patronage profile was merged into every existing report
Detailed AirtrainConnect analysis report
ToowoombaPass product was added including a portal for the bus company
Balance Sheet Report
QR Invoice Report

September 2007: Automated an SMS capability into TABS that allows staff to send limousine jobs to drivers with a single mouse click. Logic was also built into TABS to automatically convert mobile phone numbers from any country into a standardised international format. Airtrain staff were then able to send SMS to travellers before they were due to be picked up.

A portal for the various limousine companies was also developed that enabled each company to log in and see their current and future jobs. This made life easier for the limousine companies to schedule drivers whilst taking a burden off Airtrain managing drivers.

July 2007: Woodward IT developed the first version of Airtrain's web site. http://www.airtrain.com.au

The web site is fully dynamic and securely integrated with their TABS database negating the need for any ongoing changes to the web site. All reservations that are made online are entered directly into the Airtrain reservations system without the need for anyone to double-handle the information. All fare and timetable information displayed on the web site is retrieved from the Airtrain business database.

One of the great features of the site is the Interactive Map which allows surfers to easily see the cost of a train journey, where to change trains if needed and the travel time involved.

Woodward IT was also responsible for managing the domain name, setting up of the subdomain, SSL certificate installation, hosting and configuration of the secure payment gateway.

June 2007: Version 2.2 of TABS was released which marked the completion of the Airtrain business solution. The latest modifications include the incorporation of all Queensland Rail tickets and analysis, and the final end of month financial figures.

The software provides accurate financial progress of the business to management including predicting month takings based on previous monthly or yearly sales trends.

The integration of every rail ticket sold by Airtrain into the TABS database, now provides a wealth of information to management which can be extracted and interpolated by them easily. The current PostgreSQL database easily handles the millions of tickets that have been sold whilst providing answers in unbelievably quick time.

October 2006: Woodward IT was responsible for reformatting the current Airtrain Management System (AMS) from a series of controlled Word documents into a fully linked and searchable web site. The AMS is a very important series of documents for Airtrain, because the system is required in order to be able to operate a railway.

August 2006: Brisbane's Airtrain went live with TABS (Total Airtrain Business Solution) to automate every aspect of their business. TABS is a software solution developed by Woodward IT, tailored to every operation performed by Airtrain.

The first phase of the project included the Reservations and Airtrain Connect components (limousine scheduling). The product has been readily accepted by Airtrain and cut down on an immense load of double-entry performed by staff at various locations in the business.

The following major components were included in Version 1.0 of the software:

Contacts CRM functions
Reservations
Limousine scheduling
Fares
Touch-Screen solution for walk-up sales
Configuration of Airtrain Plasma Displays
Data Warehouse Tool

January 2006: The release of OASIS (Online Airtrain Safety Induction Service) occurred to assist Airtrain with the management of all aspects of safety training. Being a business whose main focus is the rail industry, Airtrain has a statutory requirement to provide an above average level of training for all employees and contractors.

As such, OASIS was developed by Woodward IT as a dual system to not only provide online training and assessment, but to also manage the training requirements of all employees.

OASIS contains a series of safety courses which have been rewritten from "tired" industry training courses. Each course is broken into a series of modules which usually contain a web page of information, followed by a web page of assessment. This allows people to complete required courses over a couple of days instead of one continuous block.

The management side of the system is responsible for recording and reporting on:

All completed courses, both online and offline training
All outstanding or overdue training
Future training requirements for employee scheduling
Any exam failures in the online material
End of month statistical emails
Automatic reminders of online courses that are about to expire
Creation of users, groups, courses and report subscriptions

August 2005: The Airtrain Plasma Display was redeveloped into another application known as the Airtrain Hotel Display. This software runs on 19" LCD screens in hotels and places of accommodation near train stations, showing departure information on trains heading to the airport.

August 2005: The Airtrain Plasma Display that was developed by Woodward IT was extended to include another display in the Brisbane International Airport. This display shows departures towards the city and those to the domestic airport.

April 2005: Woodward IT developed the Airtrain Plasma Display for Brisbane's Airtrain to replace scrolling LED displays that were not attracting travellers' attention. The application runs on wide-screen plasma displays that are very eye-catching yet simple to deduce departure information.

WIT was involved in attempting to determine exactly what Airtrain wanted to tell their customers, selecting a development environment and developing "proof" screens to determine the final look of the plasma displays. The final application is extremely robust and self managing.

There was also another piece of software which is installed on Airtrain staff desktops which allows them to alter any aspect of the timetables, therefore catering for trains that are running late, change platforms or change routes.