As part of an overall project including advertising creative, timetables, tram stop posters and other marketing collateral, Absolute was commissioned to produce the high-profile content-managed TheTram.net website.

The new website enhances the user experience and enables the public to access timetables, maps, service updates and news. The website integrates with Google Maps to present route and tram stop information in an interactive, easy-to-use format.

Specific bespoke functionality includes:

• Interactive Journey Planner
• Find Your Nearest Park & Glide
• Tram Status Update
• Online Poll

The website incorporated the ‘glide into Nottingham' creative campaign and associated photography to better reflect the reality of a clean, efficient and modern transit system that will enable Nottingham's population to gain access to a reinvigorated city.

A specially shot HTML5 video was used as an interesting and unique homepage background. This degrades gracefully for older browsers and mobile devices who see a static image, but users of newer browsers see a dynamic shot of Nottingham's Market Square as a tram glides by, adding an interesting extra dimension to the design.

We've had great feedback from the marketing team and have really enjoyed the challenge of working on a project that we believe signposts the regeneration of Nottingham and the significant capital investment that is planned for the city's infrastructure.

The new creative campaign for the Nottingham Tram started with the need to explain the benefits of the service compared to other means of public transport and to herald the new lines that will be developed over the next few years to connect Beeston, QMC and Clifton.

We developed three creative concepts and tested these with focus groups of passengers and non-passengers. The results were unanimous and the ‘Glide into Nottingham’ campaign was born. The concept was of stress-free passengers who effortlessly and smoothly ‘glided' to their destination on time.

We then art directed a photo shoot to generate bespoke images to represent customer demographics and key user of benefits.
Design for print projects included a 24 page DL passenger timetable or ‘Glide Guide' which included timetables and maps, plus  and a series of 35 A0 Tram Stop Posters, each featuring a bespoke map, individual journey times and the nearest PayPoint retailer.