The County Connection

County Connection, a transit operator in the San Francisco East Bay, needed a complete website modernization and a way to keep the transit schedules on their website up-to-date. Passengers rely on the website to get accurate route information, so it's crucial that schedules maps are correct and also easy to find on mobile devices. For transit websites, it's not just important to work ok on mobile, it's crucial.

BlinkTag created a WordPress powered website, with the most commonly needed information in the easiest to find locations. Users come to the site for schedule and fare information and to plan a trip, so this information was posted on the homepage and the first menu item. At the same time, navigation was simplified to put less-frequently accessed information on subpages.

BlinkTag also helped County Connection convert their transit schedule information from an Excel spreadsheet into General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS). This allows their schedule data to show up on Google Transit, Apple Maps and hundreds of other transit applications. After publishing their data in GTFS format, County Connection’s routes are now available on Google Maps website and on millions on smartphones which means that anyone searching for directions will have County Connection's service suggested to them. Moreover, it allows easy trip planning across other transit agencies, like connections to BART routes.

Taking things a step further, BlinkTag created a system to automatically generate the timetables and maps shown on countyconnection.com based on their published GTFS. This means that whenever a schedule change occurs, it is a simple, automated process to get new information published to the website. Not only is it fast, but compared to the old way of publishing schedules it ensures no human-made typos end up in the published timetables.