July 20, 2021

Santa Rosa, CA, Release: July 20, 2021. For Immediate release

SunTran in Tucson, AZ has launched new websites, designed and developed by Planeteria Media. The site’s focus is on riders, potential riders, and the rider experience. The site offers practical information for trip planning, schedules, fares, and route alerts, along with multi-modal transportation options. We also dedicated efforts to streamline the navigation of the website to create a pleasant user journey. The result is a visually appealing, user-friendly, and ADA-compliant website for the mobile user.

Planeteria Media integrated GTFS+ for the bus routes and schedules pages of SunTran as well as a new approach to the layout of schedule information. A key component to this project was to allow riders to easily navigate to the different available modes of transportation (SunTran, SunVan, SunOnDemand, SunLink, SunShuttle). From an administrative standpoint, the website not only saves SunTran staff countless hours when updating schedules by leveraging the GTFS data already created by their transit planning software, but it also displays information to the public in a way that is easy to consume and understand on smaller devices.  Usually shown in large data tables common on printed schedules, this classic and long-standing approach has never translated well in the digital age of small devices and ADA regulations. 

Other features and functions of the new website include:

• Multi-modal Trip Planner with quick access to essential information, such as system map and service notices
• New and improved Customer Service section
• Seamless integration of engagement opportunities, including SunTran Board Meetings, community events calendar and other engagement opportunities
• Intuitive and user-friendly navigation, including easy Search option
• Responsive design, as pages automatically adjust to a variety of devices and screen sizes

The new sites developed by Planeteria Media and their revolutionary GTFS+ platform, show the times as an easily scannable list of bus stops.  These stops can be expanded to see the various times a particular route stops there, and can then be tapped/clicked to open up that specific bus route.  This allows the rider to easily narrow down to the information they need on devices of all sizes. The visual display of the routes translates better to mobile devices, pulls information from the GTFS data already created by transit planner software and is also ADA compliant. Planeteria Media is currently developing the same technology for several other transit operators across the country.

Planeteria Media designs and develops digital experiences that bring riders to their destination.