Summary
- AppyWay runs one shared codebase across all UK customers, configured per council (operating hours, tariffs, holidays) rather than customised with one-off code.
- This keeps every customer DTRO compliant while still meeting locally varied needs, as shown by the Cornwall and Lambeth Mapper screenshots below.
- New features are shaped by consulting the whole customer community, not built to one customer’s spec.
- Benefits of this approach: better-designed features, lower and more stable cost, cleaner upgrades, a more maintainable product, free improvements from other users’ requests, a stronger long-term roadmap, faster support, and less vendor lock-in risk.
- Genuinely unique requirements may wait for community agreement, or not be adopted, but most needs are better served by the standardised approach.
- Andy Bourke (Royal Borough of Greenwich, previously London Borough of Haringey) confirms this approach delivers a better solution while still meeting individual customer needs.
By Keith Kelly
I am now in my third year at AppyWay and have always been hugely impressed with how customers and prospective customers respond to our commitment to continuous improvement alongside high quality customer consultation. It is in this context that I enjoy responding to prospective customers raising their desire to have software customised to their specific needs or wants.
One Codebase, Configured for Every Council
The two screenshots from the AppyWay Mapper software for Cornwall and the London Borough of Lambeth illustrate that whilst both (and all UK AppyWay customers) utilise a single piece of software code, it is designed to meet the needs of two very different councils with very different communities to serve.
Each can create sets of operating hours, tariffs and holidays bespoke to their needs, assured that the system as a whole is DTRO compliant whilst continuously improving user experience.
Why Consulting the Whole Community Before Building New Features Matters
Why a supplier who consults the whole community before building new features delivers significant advantages
A supplier who consults the whole customer community before building new features delivers several advantages:
- Better-designed features. Solutions shaped by many perspectives tend to be more robust, flexible, and future-proof than a solution built on one customer’s requirements. For example in the context of TRO/TMO software co-ordinated consultation can ensure accessibility standards are adhered to for all customers.
- Lower cost and price stability. Development effort is shared across the user base rather than duplicated per customer, which keeps the product more affordable over time.
- Cleaner upgrades. Community features become part of the core product, so they carry forward automatically with each release. Per-customer customisations often break on upgrade and require costly rework or manual re-application.
- A more stable, maintainable product. Fewer one-off code branches means fewer conflicts, bugs, and regressions, and a codebase that stays coherent as it grows. This is vitally important as DfT advances digital traffic orders and mandates that new (and in future existing traffic orders) are digitised in a standard format which will evolve over time.
As a customer you benefit from others’ ideas. Improvements requested by other users arrive in your version too, so you gain enhancements you never had to ask or pay for.
Stronger long-term direction. A supplier steering by consensus builds a coherent roadmap aligned with the market, rather than a fragmented product pulled in conflicting directions by individual demands.
- Faster support and shared knowledge. Because everyone runs essentially the same software, support, documentation, training, and peer advice all apply directly to you.
- Vendor commitment and reduced lock-in risk. Standardised functionality is easier for the supplier to sustain long-term, lowering the risk of features being abandoned.
- Speed and specificity: a genuinely unique requirement may wait for community agreement or not be adopted at all. But for most needs, the standardised approach gives greater value, stability, and lower total cost of ownership.
Customer Endorsement
It is reassuring that having discussed the feedback with a long standing customer the above received clear support from Andy Bourke – Parking Design & Improvement Manager at the Royal Borough of Greenwich and who has used Traffic Suite from AppyWay when he previously worked at the London Borough of Haringey.
“When I initially started working with TRO/TMO software it was tempting to demand that the software exactly matched previous systems or paper processes. What I have learnt is that a supplier who consults the whole customer community and responds to such demands with the whole customer community in mind, in the long term provides a better solution whilst meeting the needs of each customer”
Andy BourkeParking Design & Improvement Manager at the Royal Borough of Greenwich
