05 August 2005

NCP, the UK's leading parking and traffic management provider, has launched a new website (www.ncp.co.uk) signalling an increased focus on using digital communications to offer a broader range of services to both drivers and car park owners. Multimap's 'Storefinder’ and 'Travel Directions' services are a key part of NCP's strategy to make the website as useful as possible. Thanks to the service, customers can not only find their most convenient car park quickly, but also access step-by-step travel directions by car to it, and by foot from it to their final destination.

Designed and developed by digital communications agency, JKD, using the Grouptree Content Management System, the new site provides visitors with access to a comprehensive set of tools and information, including the facility to book airport parking, a sophisticated journey planner that provides details of the most convenient parking facilities and access to special offers.

“We are increasingly looking to digital technology to find innovative ways of strengthening our brand and reinforcing our position in the industry," said Graham Wylie, Head of Marketing at NCP. "The new site provides us with a framework for the launch of a number of new initiatives over the coming months."

As part of its drive to make the website as useful as possible, NCP has also deployed Multimap's XML-based mapping and travel directions service. The services enable users to search for car parks by town, postcode or street; to view detailed maps; and to access both step-by-step driving directions to their nearest car park, and walking directions from it to their final destination. The directions are provided as a textual list and as a numbered route on an interactive map. The benefits to NCP of the service being XML-based are multifold; NCP has full control over the presentation layer, it can use a single service for multiple applications in addition to the main NCP car park locator, and, given that it receives all the requests and results, it is also better able to produce its own metrics for marketing and planning purposes.

Simon Stokes, Client Service Director of JKD, said: "We focused on creating the best possible experience for the user by improving the segmentation of b2b and b2c customers, ensuring that the information delivered to each user is optimised to their specific requirements."

About Multimap

Multimap is Europe's leading provider of mapping and location-based services. The company delivers more online maps, point-to-point driving directions and geo-spatial ("where's my nearest?") searches to more companies than any other supplier in Europe. All services are offered on mobile, PDA, kiosk, and interactive TV platforms and in multiple languages.

The public website, www.multimap.com, provides a range of free, useful services to assist with everyday life. Key features include street-level maps of Europe, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia; road maps of the world; door-to-door travel directions; aerial photographs; links to location information; and services such as hotel, restaurant and entertainment booking. The public site attracts over 8.6 million unique users, registers more than 160 million page impressions every month, and is one of the top 10 most visited websites in the UK. Multimap recently featured in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 league table of fastest-growing unquoted UK companies across all sectors.

About NCP

NCP is the UK's leading parking and traffic management provider with over 600 car parks under management in the UK. The company is also fast growing its business-to-business operations offering consultancy, management and development to clients across the transport sector, ranging from airports and local authorities to retailers and rail operators.

About JKD

JKD is one of the UK's leading developers of online experiences for clients and their customers. JKD is a full-service agency that provides innovative solutions to evolve the best interactive experiences. JKD's methodology combines user-centricity, a strong understanding of business requirements and brand experience development through design, information architecture and usability. Evolving life online.

JKD works in partnership with some of the leading organisations in the UK and across the world including Waitrose, John Lewis Partnership, Exel, Voca (formerly BACS), KCI Medical (international), the Institute of Grocery Distribution and, of course, NCP.