Sector(s)
Ontario Northland provides vital transportation services across Northern Ontario, including passenger travel, rail freight,train repairs, and parcel shipping. While their digital platform already supported rich features like ticket booking, station locators, and real-time bus tracking thanks to previous work done by DrupalBliss, several of ON’s business units—such as rail freight, repair services, and corporate operations—were underrepresented online.
The project aimed to refresh and future-proof the Ontario Northland website, enhancing visibility for all business lines, while maintaining its robust functionality and integrations. The redesign also prioritized accessibility, mobile responsiveness, bilingual content, and compliance with provincial web standards.
Modernized look while Improving Navigation and Usability
The project aimed to modernize the site’s overall design while improving navigation and usability for all visitors. A key priority was to better showcase underrepresented business units—such as freight, repair, and hotel services—while continuing to support and enhance core user features like ticket booking and bus tracking. At the same time, the platform needed to comply with web accessibility standards (AODA), provide greater content management flexibility for Ontario Northland staff, and maintain full bilingual functionality in English and French.
To meet these goals, the new site was designed with a fully responsive, mobile-friendly interface that delivers a consistent experience across devices. Seamless integration with third-party APIs was required to support ticketing, bus tracking, and other operational systems. Content toggling between English and French ensured that bilingual functionality was easy to manage, while PCI compliance (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards) was factored in to protect sensitive payment-related processes.
Additional requirements included the enhancement of corporate and careers sections to improve stakeholder engagement, as well as the development of a dynamic, easily updatable homepage and blog. Together, these improvements provided Ontario Northland with a modern, flexible, and compliant digital platform capable of meeting both current and future needs.
Better User Engagement, Improved Operational Efficiency and Future Readiness
The redesigned Drupal 10 website is visually modern, mobile-optimized, and fully accessible, creating a feature-rich platform that better serves passengers, partners, and stakeholders. The new design provides equal visibility across all ON business units, with dedicated sections that strengthen brand representation and improve stakeholder engagement. Streamlined navigation and an intuitive interface have enhanced the overall user experience, making it easier for customers to access services and information.
Beyond the front-end improvements, the platform also boosts operational efficiency and future scalability. ON staff now have greater flexibility to manage bilingual content, publish timely updates, and highlight key campaigns through an enhanced blog and dynamic homepage tools.
Back to topGreater Organizational Visibility and Engagement
Drupal 10 was a natural fit for Ontario Northland's digital needs as was DrupalBliss, who had created the previous 2 versions of the site. The organization had made significant prior investments in the platform, and Drupal’s enterprise-grade flexibility, scalability, and extensive third-party integration capabilities made it the ideal CMS for the next phase of development.
By staying on Drupal (Drupal 10 with the Web Experience Toolkit (WxT) distribution) —Ontario Northland retained many existing features while benefiting from enhanced accessibility, increased mobile responsiveness, more comprehensive bilingual content, and more robust security standards. The decision also ensured continuity with key integrations, including Track my Bus, Betterez (ticketing), InnRoads (hotel booking), and Google Maps.
Technical Specifications
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