The free Transport Direct service can be accessed by digital interactive TV viewers of Sky and NTL:Telewest, as well as a limited number of interactive Freeview viewers.
In a recent poll running on the digital TV portal, over 46% of participants said that they did not have access to a PC, so could not use web services. Their preferred method of contacting government organizations was by telephone, in person or by letter, which, according to Looking Local, costs a significant amount per transaction. Digital TV is helping to bring electronic services to those without PC access and to encourage cost efficiencies.
The Transport Direct service has been welcomed by the 75 local authorities that run locally relevant interactive services on digital TV via Looking Local, and is available to all citizens across the country via their local pages. Access to services from Transport Direct, Citizens Advice and other local government organizations can be found by postcode or town name on the Looking Local portal.
Technical integration of Transport Direct with the Looking Local service was enabled by using an XML schema, which allows for the secure parsing of data from the Transport Direct database into the templates provided by DigiTV. Transport Direct says that as there was no need to replicate the data, all of the content and services are live and as up to date as possible, driven by the same technology that runs its website and mobile service.
