We're excited to announce that OpenRoad, in partnership with our client Transportation Investment Corporation (TI Corp.), have been selected as finalists for the British Columbia Technology Industry Association (BCTIA) Technology Impact Awards for our design and development of the TReO website. In their 20th year, the BCTIA awards recognize companies and people who foster innovation and growth in the BC technology sector. Each year, the BC tech community celebrates the achievements of nine winners across the categories of technology innovation, company achievement, and personal recognition.
Our nomination is in the Adoption of Technology category, for demonstrating innovation in the tolling website design of TReO.ca. The Port Mann / Highway 1 Project is the largest transportation infrastructure project in British Columbia’s history. With technology having all but eliminated the toll booth and in-person payment, the website is the only touch-point most toll customers ever have with the toll operator. The tolling website is the toll booth, invoice, call centre, and payment centre all in one. Examining past tolling website projects, we found that trying to pay a toll online could be very frustrating, resulting in public dissatisfaction, low registration rates and a high volume of calls into customer care. There was clear opportunity to rethink the experience of paying a toll online. This is a great example of how the public sector can innovate by providing a compelling and highly usable service experience, while at the same time meeting the goals of reducing channel costs and managing large amounts of transactions.
The purpose of the Adoption of Technology Award is to acknowledge "a technology company and their customer for the installation of a product or solution that has significantly improved the productivity, competitiveness, or profitability of the customers company". To us, this is truly the measure of a successful website: helping clients solve business problems that achieve measurable results. In the case of TReO, TI Corp had set an original goal of 250,000 registrations by November 30, 2012 with a 60% online self-service rate. Working with OpenRoad, they were able to achieve 550,000 registrations by the target date with an impressive 80% of these registrations taking place online. By February 28, 2013, another key promotional milestone, TI Corp's registration total stood at a remarkable 750,000, which is 50% of the 1.5M total registered vehicles in the Metro Vancouver region (source: ICBC).
Port Mann Bridge November 2012. Photo credit: pmh1project.com
The final winners of the BCTIA awards will be announced on June 6th, 2013. Either way, we're really proud of what we helped TI Corp to achieve. We would like to extend our congratulations to TI Corp and to all the other finalists. Best of luck!
Read the full BCTIA media release.