case study
Santa Barbara Airbus
They move people, we develop web sites
First Crescent was selected to completely redesign and develop the new web site including online ticketing and reservation system for Santa Barbara’s longstanding Shuttle service to LAX. Travelers going to LAX can now check all current bus schedules, buy tickets online with their credit card and even manage their own trips with their own user accounts. Riders can view bus schedules, book trips to and from LAX, pay online with a credit card or pay at bus, and even print out their own tickets. Should schedules change as often happens while traveling, riders can login to their own My Airbus account and update their tickets.
Problems
Although the original 10-year old web site, online ticket system worked minimally to process 25% of the company’s business online, it was not PCI compliant (payment card industry specifically refers to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.) Additionally the old site had numerous back end issues, bugs, and modules that simply did not work. The old site looked dated, 10 years old and required a web company to perform the routine updates.
Solutions
First Crescent was asked to create a new more modern layout for the web site that worked well, was secure, PCI compliant, and offered a fully functional administrative back end. The new was to be developed with an integrated Content management system as well. The preproduction or discovery phase of the project was when the project was essentially mapped out. The artist created the new look and feel based on the information garnered during the Preproduction Survey.
The online ticketing system and back end administration, content management system was developed using Ruby on Rails open source web application framework. The Santa Barbara Air Bus can finally manage their own web site with our new customized Content Management System. They can update the sites content, bus schedules, fares, calendar events, and the photo album. If there is a question, they can even manage and update the rider’s reservations accounts.
