Challenge

The Director of National Parks (DNP) operates national parks such as Kakadu, Uluru and Booderee. The existing visitor pass ticketing system was paper-based

DNP was concerned about not having visibility of their customers, which limited their ability to set optimal pricing levels, understand customer segments and build marketing campaigns for return and new business.

Paper-based ticketing also created compliance issues: without a purchaser identifier, tickets could be easily passed along, resulting in reduced revenue.

In mid-2015, DNP commenced a traditional ‘up-front design’, market test and waterfall delivery. By December 2015, with just over four months left before scheduled launch, project delivery was projected to cost three times the available budget, and well behind time. In January 2016, DNP engaged GoSource to try an agile approach.

Approach

GoSource established a multi-disciplinary agile team with a delivery lead to manage work prioritisation and a dedicated business representative to clarify processes and business priorities.

Before commencing work, the team captured user stories and revealed that individual customers only represent a small proportion of ticket sales, with the main purchaser being tour operators. They then worked with DNP to adjust the scope of the work to deliver a solution for all customers.

By early February, the team began testing prototypes with tour operators in Darwin and collecting user research using a behaviour driven development framework. They delivered a working ‘alpha’ MVP by March. In early April, they soft-launched a full feature beta product to select customers.

Solution

GoSource delivered the completed mobile responsive platform for around half the original budget and went live for all users a few days ahead of the original 1 May deadline.

The system has a strong focus on the needs of the wholesaler (such as tour operators) and has vastly improved the relationship between park staff and end customers. 

Built on AWS cloud services including EC2 and RDS and leveraging a highly automated devops pipeline, the system has successfully delivered more than 100 automated post-production releases. 

Offering fast and easy online purchasing has improved the visitor experience, and more people are purchasing tickets. With more ticket sales being automated, the park staff have more time to concentrate on looking after visitors. Online ticketing makes life easier for tour operators too. They can now buy passes in ‘real time’ rather than having cash tied up in ticket stockpiles. Sales distribution has increased as multiple retailers become sellers of park passes.

The system also captures all customer data, which has vastly improved the DNP’s ability to make well-founded business decisions.