BT Berlin Transport: Relaunch social intranet with mobile APP

BT Berlin Transport’s social mobile intranet, developed by CBE DIGIDEN, has been in use since 2015. It is a key success factor in seamless communication with the approximately 1,800 employees who work as drivers in public transport across the city. The new version of the intranet with a connected mobile app ensures a particularly fast, reliable and direct flow of information to all employees – regardless of their location and optimally tailored to their information needs.

Berlin Transport is part of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) group and employs around 1,800 people. The majority of them drive buses and subways through the capital day and night. A large workforce that is never together in one place.

The BT intranet was designed by CBE DIGIDEN in 2012 and implemented on the basis of Drupal – but the majority of employees had little opportunity to access it during ongoing operations.

In 2015, the intranet was therefore redesigned and expanded to include the “BT News” mobile app, which makes news and relevant information for driving operations accessible via mobile phones. Traffic on the new intranet doubled shortly after its launch. Berlin Transport employees feel well informed and connected. This user-oriented intranet concept was awarded the German Award for Online Communication in 2014 and the German Design Award in 2016.

In 2021, the concept for a relaunch of the system began in order to integrate new user requests for both the intranet and the mobile app. The user-centered approach has been significantly expanded once again [as an in-house development based on Drupal and Flutter] – and many functions that can now be implemented have been integrated directly into the APP concept as native functions:

• The information on construction sites, changed routes or fare changes that is important for drivers can be accessed much faster and easier – and supplemented by powerful filter functions.
• Individual messages are given more space and can be designed more generously – also due to the significantly improved screens of smartphones since 2015.
• Employees can be flexibly offered a variety of different topics in a very clear design grid.
• In addition to the App, almost all content on the intranet can be accessed via in-app browsing on an employee’s phone.
• All content is centrally set up in the Drupal-based intranet and read out by the BT News app via an interface.
• Push notifications can be sent to mobile devices if required.

The implementation was carried out gradually until 2023, and productive operation was started at the end of 2023 after an intensive test phase. In this project, it was possible to develop a particularly user-friendly, flexible solution that cleverly uses the technical possibilities for close employee communication.