Case study
Transforming National Highway’s Dart Charge with user-centred design, service design and agile methodologies
Summary
National Highways is the government organisation which builds, maintains and operates Britain’s motorways and major roads. They are responsible for the Dart Charge, a congestion charging system on the Dartford Crossing – the bridge and tunnels that crucially connect the M25 between Essex and Kent.
As a public service, National Highways needed to update and improve the Dart Charge service to reduce penalty charge notices (PCNs) and improve user experience. As the Dart Charge service had previously failed to meet UK Government Digital Service (GDS) standards, National Highways and the programme needed assurance and support from a team with in-depth knowledge and experience of working to GDS standards, as well as Service Design and UX, which is where CACI came in.
Company size
5,000+
Industry
Government
Challenge
The project plan and requirements stated that National Highways wanted the service to meet GOV.UK standards and pass its Alpha assessment, but there were no details on how this would be achieved by the contracted suppliers. CACI needed to help ensure a coherent, smooth, end-to-end user-centred project in this Alpha phase and guide the multi-faceted team to ensure the new digital Dart Charge met GDS standards for the first time.
We had to understand the existing end-to-end service and legacy platform to identify where it failed to meet diverse user needs and contributed to high PCN rates. These insights were needed to highlight UX/CX gaps, skills shortages—particularly around accessibility – and support procurement of the right people and services to build a successful multi-disciplinary team.
A final objective was to embed Service Design and user-centred design principles and working practices and oversee prototypes for the new service using the GOV.UK prototyping toolkit – refined through iteration and user testing- that Dart Charge service owners could use to meet user needs and resolve the pain points we identified.
Solution
CACI initiated a comprehensive service design strategy, beginning with in-depth user research encompassing various user personas, including neurodiverse individuals and those with limited digital access. This research informed the creation of detailed ‘as-is’ and ‘to-be’ service blueprints, highlighting areas for improvement.
To meet the GDS Service Standard meant educating and collaborating with multiple stakeholders and suppliers was a vital part of the work. CACI engaged with multiple government technology vendors and suppliers and introduced Agile methodologies, user-centred design practices and gave guidance on governance, operations, and day-to-day activities, all fostering a new culture of iterative development and continuous feedback.
We also provided practical guidance to the team on passing the Alpha service assessment, creating a working plan to meet – and evidence – all 14 aspects of the GDS Service Standards. Drilling down further to a structured methodology with 100+ practical steps needed to meet them, suppliers then providing the CACI team with evidence of how they are taking these steps, tracking their progress against the required criteria.
Accessibility was a core focus, with designs and prototypes tested against WCAG guidelines to ensure inclusivity. The team also addressed operational challenges, identifying skill gaps and recommending the integration of accessibility and service design experts.
Results
Meeting GDS Service Standards can often be thought of as a tick box exercise, but we wanted to steer this towards being a brilliant service. Our hands-on, empathetic, highly user-centred approach was a key contributor to National Highways’ success in the Dart Charge moving through the Alpha service assessment successfully, the first time in 7 years it had done so.
National Highways are now using this project as an internal case study for learning how to deal with future programs involving other crossings. The National Highways team are also using this project as a learning tool on what it means to go through – a meet – a GOV.UK service assessment process.
