Sector(s)
Team Members
The project was driven by several key challenges: harmonising the digital tools of the City and the Metropolis, simplifying navigation and access to public services, and improving accessibility, performance, security and environmental efficiency.
Rather than developing two completely separate platforms, the project relied on shared technical foundations and resources. This approach enabled the two institutions to maintain their own editorial identities while sharing content and technical capabilities where relevant. The ecosystem also extends to several associated TPM websites, creating a coherent and scalable digital environment for local public services.
The project brought together several specialist partners: the City of Toulon and TPM Metropolis for institutional management, Permeable for UX/UI design, Idéance for accessibility expertise, and bluedrop.fr for Drupal development, hosting, IT management and ongoing maintenance.
About the project
The challenges of the project
- Harmonize the digital tools of the City and the TPM Metropolis.
- Provide greater clarity and smoother navigation for users.
- Enhance accessibility, performance, and security across all public websites.
Shared governance and agile multi-stakeholder collaboration
- City of Toulon & TPM Metropolis (institutional management).
- UX/UI: Permeable (design and ergonomics).
- Digital accessibility: Ideance (RGAA audits and recommendations).
- Development & TMA: bluedrop.fr (Drupal, hosting, IT management).
An editorial structure designed to facilitate access to procedures and highlight local public action
- Four main sections for the City of Toulon: My daily life, My town hall, My formalities, Building the future.
- Three editorial universes for the TPM Metropolis: The Metropolis, Our missions, Major projects.
- Development of Drupal templates and components tailored to editorial needs: calendar, facilities, news, project pages…
Advanced features for an efficient digital public service
- Interactive mapping connected in real time to Toulon's databases.
- Content sharing between the two Drupal sites (news, events).
- Enhanced calendar via connection to Apidae Event for automatic import of events.
- Optimized performance with advanced caching (Varnish).
- Compliance with GDPR: statistical tracking via Matomo and cookie management with Tarte au Citron.
Digital accessibility as a citizen and institutional priority
According to the Métropole TPM: “From design to technical development, the teams ensured compliance with the criteria set out in the General Accessibility Improvement Framework (RGAA).” Our approach was based on comprehensive and collaborative support:
- Our Starter Drupal optimized for accessibility: semantic HTML, ARIA structure, etc.
- Audits and recommendations for each component carried out by Idéance, specialists in accessibility.
- Training for municipal and metropolitan contributors in best editorial practices.
- Integration of transcripts and captions for visuals conveying information (see images below).
An RGAA audit will soon validate the quality and accessibility of the new sites.
Eco-design: implementation of automatic deletion of obsolete content
A large part of the recommendations from the General Reference Guide for Eco-Design of Digital Services (RGESN) is integrated into our work standards. The City of Toulon and the Metropolitan Area TPM also benefited from additional best practices, such as the automatic removal of outdated content (articles and events) in order to limit server load.
Result: the average EcoIndex score for both sites is rated C, above the national average for public sites.
An exemplary Drupal project for local authorities
We thank the City of Toulon & the TPM Metropolis for this collaboration based on technical excellence. It demonstrates our ability to manage complex, shared, accessible, and eco-designed Drupal projects, meeting the highest standards of digital public service.
A new phase of AMS (Application Maintenance Services) is now beginning for these two sites, as well as for the associated ecosystem: conservatoire-tpm.fr - ports-tpm.fr - maisondupatrimoine.fr - bienchezsoi-tpm.fr - congres-tournages-tpm.fr - villatamaris.fr.
URLs reminder:
Read the interview of the accessibility expert and our front-end development lead about their collaboration !
The opinion of the Toulon Metropolis
"We began our collaboration with Bluedrop by redesigning the corporate website for the Toulon Provence Méditerranée Metropolitan Area. The timeline was very tight due to the pre-election period, with significant accessibility requirements. Jeremy, our project manager, and Lead Dev Lara took on the project very quickly. The UX and UI had been developed with the agency Perméable, but for reasons related to a change in public procurement, the two teams were unable to work together. The professionalism of the team made for a very quick analysis and understanding of the UI. Communication was easy and smooth despite a fast-paced schedule. What I appreciated most about this collaboration was the availability of our contacts, who were always attentive and ready to find a solution. The redesign was completed on time, without stress, and with great goodwill. Thank you to the whole team for this wonderful achievement!"
Sandrine Moulinas, Digital Project Manager of the Toulon Provence Mediterranean Metropolis
The opinion of the accessibility consultant who audited the site
"I have just completed the counter-audit of the Toulon Metropolitan site. The results are very good. The overall compliance rate is 91.9% and the average rate is 99%. Congratulations. The vast majority of development issues have been fixed beautifully, fully following my corrective requests. Well done, Jérémy, congratulations to the whole team."
Steven Mouret, Digital Accessibility Consultant, Ideance
Why Drupal was chosen
Drupal was chosen for its ability to meet the specific needs of large public-sector organisations such as cities and metropolitan authorities.
- Structured content: Drupal handles complex and diverse content models, ideal for public services, news, events and administrative information.
- Multisite capabilities: several institutional websites can share a common technical foundation while remaining independently managed.
- Accessibility: Drupal provides a strong foundation for building accessible websites and meeting public-sector accessibility requirements.
- Security: its robust architecture and active open-source community make it suitable for critical institutional websites.
- Scalability: the platform can evolve as new services, content, integrations and websites are added.
- Editorial flexibility: Drupal gives different teams and departments appropriate publishing workflows and permissions.
- Performance: advanced caching and optimisation capabilities support high-traffic public websites.
- Sustainability: Drupal enables technical and editorial choices that contribute to more efficient, eco-designed websites.
- Open source: institutions retain control over their technology, data and long-term digital strategy.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
