This week saw the beta launch of FixMyTransport, the latest addition to the MySociety stable of civic action websites. Its the first in the stable to launch since WhatDoTheyKnow, the freedom of information platform, went live in 2008, and aims to resolve public transport problems by encouraging people to engage in small scale 'micro-activism'.
It is aimed at making it easy for public transport users to complain to the companies responsible for those services. Using a number of freely available datasets from the data.gov.uk repository, MySociety has joined stops and stations with the contact details of the responsible authorities to save users from searching online for the information.
Once again, MySociety has shown government how to develop a public-facing online service, delivering its most complex and data-driven site to date.
What makes FixMyTransport different to some of government's sizeable IT failures is that it focuses on the user and what they want from a site, rather than what it can give them. As with its previous projects, FixMyStreet and TheyWorkforYou, MySociety has sought to encourage high usability and deep engagement. Also, as Tom Steinberg, the founder and director of MySociety points out, sustainability is important, something that clearly wasn't high on the list of priorities as millions was spent on the National Programme and a service that never actually came to market.
What's more, as a result of providing a user-led interface and design, FixMyTransport already has over 41 pages of submissions on numerous issues, including problems with train announcements at a station in West Yorkshire, resolved.
So while government continues to look at ways of creating more localised and modular IT systems, MySociety continues to develop just that in a much shorter timeframe and at a fraction of the cost.
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