HTM Achieves 60% Faster Development, Transforming Employee Efficiency and Transportation Management

Citizen demands and ever-changing regulations are forcing the public sector to be more agile and flexible than ever. These pressures have been felt by HTM Personenvervoer NV (HTM), the organization responsible for providing transportation services to over 800,000 citizens in The Hague.

HTM’s focus on quality and customer experience is consistently recognized by its passengers. In the OV Klantenbarometer 2024, HTM achieved an average score of 7.9 — matching its result from 2023 and maintaining its position as the best-performing city transport operator in the Netherlands since 2018.

This strong passenger appreciation underlines HTM’s ambition to continuously improve — not only in service delivery, but also in the way the organization operates internally. HTM had traditionally taken a buy over build approach when delivering tools to support their employees and citizens. Over time, this led to a landscape of disparate and ungoverned SaaS solutions resulting in business and technical inefficiencies.

To become more future-ready, HTM began a long-term IT transformation in 2021, auditing their processes, infrastructure, and platforms. This included enlisting Mendix as a strategic development platform to fill gaps left by high code or off-the-shelf options. HTM has since scaled up their use of Mendix with 15+ applications that are enabling business efficiency from employee communications to incident registration.

Getting On the Right Track

For years HTM’s IT team delivered new software with C# or Visual Basic. Over time, an increasing IT backlog and lengthy development timelines led business teams to begin acquiring their own solutions.

Without any IT oversight, these tools duplicated efforts and costs. Additionally, this opened the door for potential security vulnerabilities and quality concerns.

In 2021, Paul van den Heuvel joined HTM as CIO and began a strategic re-prioritization within IT. “I introduced a plan to re-build IT from scratch so that we could become a department that was consistently delivering value for our business stakeholders,” he said.

Van den Heuvel’s approach focused on:

• New ways of working, primarily shifting from a waterfall to Agile approach.
• Introducing new architectural, security, and DevOps standards.
• Making significant upgrades to their network and infrastructure.
• Rationalizing their software development strategy and incorporating a low-code platform.

The HTM team had already been investigating low-code platforms to support with a specific use case around incident registration and management on their trains.

At the time, HTM conducted a thorough selection process to determine the most suitable low-code platform. Both Mendix and OutSystems were evaluated as leading solutions. However, Mendix stood out due to several practical considerations that aligned better with HTM’s strategic goals:

• Stronger cost control over licensing.
• A better fit with HTM’s integration strategy.
• Easier adoption through the availability of skilled developers and a large community within the Netherlands.
• Mendix’s position within the Siemens ecosystem provided a future-proof choice for integration with other platforms.

These factors, combined with the need for a scalable, standardized platform to bring experimental business-side developments under proper IT governance, led to the decision to adopt Mendix as HTM’s strategic low-code platform.

In the short-term, Mendix could help IT build goodwill and trust with their business counterparts, allowing them to deliver new solutions while still tackling more resource-intensive updates to their infrastructure.

“Using Mendix helped us to build up our reputation. Business stakeholders don’t care about the work we are doing with the infrared network layers. They care about stuff that helps them to realize their goals. It was important to use Mendix in parallel to show them that we could actually deliver what they wanted,” said Van den Heuvel.

Low-Code Transformation at High Speed

Marco Stevens, Manager of Business IT Platforms at HTM, has been guiding the team since the start of their low-code implementation. Stevens oversees eight DevOps teams that are responsible for a broad scope of systems — ranging from payment and settlement processes in the vehicles to critical back-office applications.

The team planned to experiment with three proof-of-concept (POC) applications with Mendix and then decide which to take forward based on the business demand.

“One of these POCs was a one-to-many communication tool, because our field service employees shared that passengers in the vehicles would often receive information about service disruptions before they did,” said Stevens.

Previously, employees would manually have to investigate when disruptions or maintenance occurred. Paper notifications were put on a physical wall and then reflected in a SharePoint site.

“We took this feedback very seriously and began developing an app to address this with Mendix,” said Stevens. After just one sprint, the business was enthusiastic about what they saw and began sharing ideas to take the application even further.

Over time, MyHTM has grown to become the go-to destination for centralizing and digitizing internal processes. The application is a gateway to nearly 30 different modules, including:

• Employee communications
• HR information
• Workplace reservations
• An issue reporting module
• Extensive integrations with other systems and platforms

The IT team has delivered significant value with the creation of MyHTM, reducing manual work and replacing costly third-party systems. The application has nearly a 100% adoption rate across the organization’s 2,400 employees.

The biggest benefit is happier employees, which means happier customers. “There are some things you can’t measure, like the confidence of a driver who is always up to date with the latest operational updates or company news,” said Stevens.

One-Way Ticket to Business Efficiency

After promoting the success of MyHTM, the IT team has kept momentum for Mendix projects by enlisting the support of business technologists. By creating their own Mendix learning paths, HTM has attracted team members who are interested in Mendix and then supported them in getting a Mendix Rapid Developer Certification.

“We established a Low-Code Lab where anyone with a Rapid certification gains access to this environment where they can build applications, and at a certain point IT takes over,” said Stevens. “This allows us to get new ideas into production while also making sure that these solutions meet HTM internal standards and compliance requirements.”

HTM also enlisted the support of a strategic implementation partner, Emixa. As a long-time Mendix partner, Emixa has guided HTM on training their internal team, establishing architectural best practices, and ensuring long-term software quality by developing for reuse.

“The collaboration with Emixa has been a key factor in our success with Mendix. From the start, they helped us set up our architecture, train our teams, and establish best practices. What we appreciate most is their proactive attitude, their flexibility, and their focus on knowledge transfer. Thanks to their support, we have been able to scale up our low-code capabilities, while maintaining high software quality and becoming more self-sufficient over time,” said Stevens.

Mendix has evolved to play a strategic role in the HTM development landscape. In cases where speed of delivery or flexibility are most important, low-code can be an optimal choice over high code or an off-the-shelf option.

Smart Diagnostics for Tram Maintenance

Following the purchase of the Siemens Avenio trams, HTM saw an opportunity to improve the way technical teams perform diagnostics and maintenance.

Because Mendix is part of the Siemens ecosystem, there is a strong network of business technologists within Siemens who regularly experiment with the platform. One of these Siemens experts collaborated with HTM’s technical department to develop an application that provides mechanics with direct access to vehicle-generated data.

The app offers near real-time insight into logged technical information from the trams, enabling technicians to quickly analyze the situation and perform targeted diagnostics and repairs. Instead of spending time searching for the right data or performing manual checks, mechanics now have the key information at their fingertips — helping them to act faster and more effectively when resolving technical issues. 

Responding to Regulatory Requirements

In 2023 the Dutch government introduced OVPay, a national standard for digital ticketing that all regional and local transportation providers must adhere to. Organizations like HTM had to scramble to update their systems and procedures in order to meet the government’s deadlines.

“OVPay has a big impact on our customers. If people have issues paying in our trams or buses, that’s not very good for our customer NPS or satisfaction scores,” said Van den Heuvel.

In addition to strict timelines, there was no standard system or approach for Dutch transportation providers to reference. Requirements were sure to change as the situation evolved. With these factors in mind, HTM decided that Mendix could meet the complexity required in orchestrating their new payment processes, while remaining flexible enough to change over time.

Within a couple of months, HTM delivered a service portal and service engine in support of the OVPay program. The application makes millions of API calls to HTM’s TransLink system for information or payments.

“There are big integrations and a service engine to connect all of the information that passes through, and then workflows are orchestrated by the logic in Mendix,” said Stevens.

Experimenting with AI

HTM regularly organizes “pizza sessions” where business teams are invited to learn about new technologies and explore how these could support their daily work. During one of these sessions, which focused on the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), the IT team prepared a special demonstration to show what is already possible with AI and Mendix.

Ahead of the session, the IT team developed a proof-of-concept chatbot application that could answer questions from HTM’s collective labor agreement (CLA) — including topics like vacation days, salary terms, and other employment conditions.

During the session, this app was made available for the participants to test themselves, giving them a hands-on experience of how AI could help make complex information easier to access.

“This is just one early idea that isn’t in production yet, but it’s a successful test to show what’s possible and how fast we can get something working. I think there are a lot of possibilities for our front office team to troubleshoot issues with AI, and we look forward to seeing what comes next,” said Stevens.

Conductors of Innovation

Despite its popularity, misconceptions still shroud the landscape of low-code development. To those who perceive low-code as fit for simple projects only, Stevens says: “Come see what we have done with Mendix – you’ll be surprised.”

HTM’s technology operations have come a long way since 2021. IT is delivering solutions that business teams need, and businesspeople are happily using them.

“We want to be integrated with our business stakeholders. We want to stand next them, and we want to help them realize their goals,” said Van den Heuvel. “Their goals are our goals. Having a standard development platform like Mendix helps us show that we can do that.”

Since implementing Mendix as part of their overall IT transformation, HTM has realized promising business outcomes:

• Improved trust and collaboration between business and IT.
• Better employee – and therefore customer – experiences.
• Cost savings through speed of delivery and reduced reliance on third-party systems.

HTM’s ability to quickly respond to national developments like OVPay has positioned the organization as an inspiring example within the Dutch public transport sector. Other local providers, such as RET and GVB, have shown interest in HTM’s approach and the lessons learned along the way.

By sharing experiences and collaborating with these peers, HTM helps to drive innovation within the sector — making a positive impact for passengers not only in The Hague, but across the country.