Skåne County in the southern tip of Sweden has always led the way for Swedish transport. The region includes one of the world’s oldest airports (Ljungbyhed), the country’s first motorway, and the longest road and rail bridge in Europe between Malmö and Danish capital of Copenhagen.
Skånetrafiken is the regional authority that manages public transport across the county, which prides itself on providing reliable public transport that contributes to a better environment and protects the landscape.
IT Team leader Pär Svensson is responsible for the technology infrastructure supporting the region’s travelers who make more than 164 million trips each year.
Skånetrafiken wanted to make it as easy as possible for travelers to use its services that allow them to access accurate, up-to-date travel information, plan journeys, and purchase tickets online. But this would require updating its website and underlying IT infrastructure to handle increased traffic and transactions.
Skånetrafiken was already a long-time user of Citrix XenApp for application virtualization, so Gold Citrix Solution Advisor Infozone recommended Citrix ADC.
Better reliability and security
“Our new site has far greater functionality than before, and our previous load balancing solution couldn’t handle the extra load,” Svensson says. “With Citrix ADC, travelers can now buy tickets and travel cards online. They can top-up their travel cards, apply for refunds if their journey is delayed, and receive real-time information about their journeys. As a result, we have many more users and many more concurrent sessions.”
The new website receives 4,000,000 requests each day, with peaks at rush hour and during periods of severe weather. Two Citrix ADC appliances handle all requests, ensuring the site is available, stable, and reliable under all conditions.
Most importantly, “Citrix gives us good security,” Svensson explains. “Citrix ADC is better at identifying and dropping unfriendly data packets or connections. It helps us be more secure.”
Creating cloud services from legacy apps
Skånetrafiken now also offers a mobile app for travelers. The cloud-based service is built on Microsoft Azure but relies on data held on the transport authority’s physical servers.
“Citrix ADC has helped us build cloud services that connect with legacy, on-premises systems. Effectively, we have three data centers: two physical ones and a virtual data center in the cloud,” Svensson says.
Citrix ADC also connects web users with Skånetrafiken’s CRM system. Travelers can start a webchat with the authority’s customer service staff, and the system automatically opens and updates the customer’s record. Any issues can be dealt with in full knowledge of the facts, and decisions can be instantly shared with the independent transport companies that operate Skånetrafiken’s services. The dynamic CRM system is also updated automatically if a customer applies for a refund online.
Supporting happy customers through greater staff productivity
With Citrix ADC’s success on Skånetrafiken’s website, Svensson decided to also implement Citrix ADC in the authority’s Citrix app farm to provide employees with remote access to apps.
“We have around 15 Citrix app servers, and every application we use is now available from anywhere,” Svensson says. “We travel a lot for work, and it is always good to know you can log in and use the same applications wherever you are.”
Skånetrafiken has 100 staff using Citrix for remote access to their applications and information. As a result, staff can be more productive and respond to customer needs more quickly. It also has 500 users from the various partner organizations that provide travel and administrative services. Citrix provides a granular level of security that lets Svensson and his team define who has access to which information.
With Citrix ADC, Skånetrafiken continues to add new functionality for travelers, like automatic refunds for late trains, supporting its mission to encourage people to use public transport and keep the region at the forefront of transportation innovation in Sweden.
