Live Transit Departures in the Intranet: Why a Public Transport Widget Beats Any App
Just before leaving the office, it’s always the same routine: grab your phone, open the transit app, search for the stop, check departure times. What sounds like a small thing adds up to a surprising amount of time – especially at locations served by multiple lines. And anyone who just barely misses their train often ends up waiting 20 minutes on the platform.
What if this information was already available where employees look several times a day – in the intranet or the employee app?
The Problem: Everyday Information Stays Outside the Intranet
Many companies invest heavily in their intranet. News, policies, and forms are meticulously maintained. But practical everyday information is often missing:
- No central place for location-specific information like public transport connections
- Everyone searches on their own – via personal apps, browser tabs, or notices at reception
- Manual workarounds cost time: Some editorial teams publish disruption alerts as news or link to external transit websites – which leads users away from the platform and quickly becomes outdated
- Low everyday relevance – when the intranet is only useful for official announcements, daily visit frequency drops
The result: the intranet becomes an obligation rather than a helpful companion throughout the workday.
The Solution: Live Departure Times Directly in Staffbase
With the JASP Widget Builder, public transport departure times can be embedded as a live widget directly on the Staffbase intranet homepage. The widget is natively integrated via the Staffbase Plugin API – no iFrame, no media breaks, responsive on desktop and mobile.
A practical example:
A mid-sized company located in a metropolitan area with around 800 employees, many of whom commute by public transport. Previously, everyone had to open their transit app before leaving the office. Now they see the next departures directly on the intranet homepage:
- Line, direction, and scheduled departure time
- Real-time delays (where provided by the transit operator)
- Platform information
- Alternative connections during disruptions
For companies with multiple locations, Staffbase targeting takes care of the rest: employees in Munich automatically see different stops than colleagues in Hamburg – without any manual maintenance.
Technical Background: Easier Than You Think
Most transit authorities in Germany provide real-time data through standardised interfaces, such as GTFS-Realtime or operator-specific APIs. The Widget Builder connects to these data sources and presents the information visually.
The process:
- Check data sources: We work with you to identify which interfaces are available for your locations
- One-time setup (IT): Connect the data source, configure stops per location – typically no firewall changes required
- Then it’s editorial work: Placement, layout, displayed stops, and visibility are managed independently by the editorial team
The data stays with the transit authority – no personal data is processed.
More Than a Gimmick
The principle behind it is simple: relevance through everyday utility. Anyone who checks departure times in the morning also sees the latest company news. This creates a positive cycle – more everyday utility leads to more visits, more visits mean more reach for all communication content.
Next Step
Would you like to see what a public transport widget could look like in your Staffbase intranet? We’ll check in advance which data sources are available for your locations – and show you the result in a short, no-obligation demo.