Transport Timetable Introduction & Setup

The Transport Timetable is for any attraction with transport that runs to set times, such as heritage and steam railways, zoo road trains or seaside road trains. Guests can pick their visit date and see exactly which services run, and when they stop at each location.

Most of the work is planning your information before you start. Once it's mapped out, the setup is quick. This guide gives you a checklist to plan your information first, then points you to the walkthrough video for the setup itself.

Introduction and Overview Video

How the pieces fit together

Planning checklist

Work through these before you open the CMS. A simple spreadsheet or document is plenty.

1. Lines: How many lines do you run? Give each a clear name and a colour.
2. Locations: List every stop on every line. Note which are request stops.
3. Features: List anything you want to show in the key, such as a cafe, play area, toilets or disabled access. Features are shared across all lines, so you only create each one once. Each can have an icon (or a single letter), a colour and a label.
4. Routes: Write out the order of stops for each direction. Going out and coming back each need their own route. If your daytime and evening journeys stop in different places, they need separate routes too.
5. Services: List each individual departure, for example "10am from Park Entrance" and "11.30am from North Pole". Group them in folders if you have lots, such as Daytime and Evening.
6. Timetables: Decide which services run when. Do you have different timetables for peak and off peak, school holidays or Easter? Note the start and end dates of each.
7. Times: For every service, note the arrival and departure time at each stop. Remember to use the 24 hour clock (for example 19.30, not 7.30pm).
8. Special events: Do you have events that should show in the calendar view, such as an Easter egg hunt or a Christmas special? Note which timetable they belong to.
9. Pages: Decide where the timetable will appear. We suggest one page per line, and a choice of two layouts: a date picker (guests choose a date from a dropdown) or a calendar (guests pick from a visual calendar).

Set it up: watch the walkthrough

The long setup video covers everything above, step by step. Here are the key moments:

• 0:17 Where it lives in the CMS (in your settings, per brand)
• 2:01 Creating a line
• 2:47 Creating features
• 4:00 Creating locations
• 6:37 Creating routes
• 8:30 Creating services
• 14:23 Creating a timetable and setting its dates
• 20:20 Adding calendar indicators and linking special events
• 21:17 Adding the arrival and departure times to each stop
• 27:52 Final sanity check

Adding it to your pages

Once your timetable is set up, adding it to a page is quick. Add a block, search for "transport" or "timetable", then choose your line and layout in the block settings. The final video in the series covers this.

See Transport Timetable Block options guide... 

Top tips

• Save and publish first. If you see a "no matching content" warning when adding features, save and publish the item, then try again.
• Keep service names short. The name appears at the top of each column on the timetable, so use something like "7pm", not a long description.
• Name things clearly. Folders and services are much easier to find later.
• Copy, don't start again. You can right click and copy routes, services and other items, just like anywhere else in LOOP.
• Check your times. Open your services in separate tabs and compare them to your printed timetable. It's an easy way to catch typos.
• Blank timetable? Check the dates on your timetable, as it may have expired. You can also set a message to show when there are no results for a date.

Need a hand?

There's quite a lot to the first setup, so don't hesitate to get in touch. We're happy to guide you through the best way to structure it on a call.

Created by Neil Lewin, Modified on Wed, 7 Oct at 11:54 AM by Neil Lewin