Rail travel has the potential to be the number one choice for passengers travelling for work or pleasure.
But there is work to be done to make rail travel more accessible and inclusive, while improving the overall passenger experience in order to boost demand.
Engine has worked with a number of rail companies to help enhance their customer experience (CX) design and attract more passengers to travel by rail.
Here are some challenges we’ve helped our clients overcome…
Challenge 1: Working within the confines of outdated infrastructure
Rail projects often have to work within the constraints of existing track (which can sometimes be up to 200 years old) and stations that were designed for people who travel very differently to how they do today.
When affecting meaningful change in these areas isn’t possible, we’re able to focus on other things to improve customers’ experiences. These include:
When Southeastern Railway invested in a new rail route, it needed to develop a service vision that would provide the blueprint for an enhanced passenger experience, based on in-depth customer research.
We worked with them to develop the service vision, which detailed a series of customer-centred concepts for enhancing the passenger experience – including ticketing, platforms, trains, staff, information, and digital touchpoints.
Using the results of the customer research, we mapped out the existing rail journey and developed a vision for the ideal future journey, including the innovation of several concepts as part of a phased implementation plan.
Challenge 2: Addressing the disjointed experience of travelling by train
Customer perception of the experience of travelling on trains is broadly positive. However, getting to and from the station is often much more of a challenge, and can be the reason why people choose not to travel by rail.
Providing a joined-up, door-to-door offer to customers is the best way to encourage them to swap their cars for trains. That also means designing stations that are easy to access with personal modes of transport like bicycles and scooters, with secure areas to store them or spaces onboard, so customers can travel with them.
At Engine, we work with mobility providers, rail operators and strategic rail projects across the UK to reimagine end-to-end and integrated travel experiences. We guide transport operators in the design of improvements to the customer experience and new service standards. We also work as service design partners to strategic rail projects, anticipating and designing for future technologies and the changing expectations of travelling passengers.
Customer perception of the experience of travelling on trains is broadly positive. However, getting to and from the station is often much more of a challenge, and can be the reason why people choose not to travel by rail.
Providing a joined-up, door-to-door offer to customers is the best way to encourage them to swap their cars for trains. That also means designing stations that are easy to access with personal modes of transport like bicycles and scooters, with secure areas to store them or spaces onboard, so customers can travel with them.
At Engine, we work with mobility providers, rail operators and strategic rail projects across the UK to reimagine end-to-end and integrated travel experiences. We guide transport operators in the design of improvements to the customer experience and new service standards. We also work as service design partners to strategic rail projects, anticipating and designing for future technologies and the changing expectations of travelling passengers.
Challenge 3: The real-world experience doesn’t always match the digital experience
We’ve all checked our phones to see when the next train is, only to look up at the departures board to see something very different.
In an ideal world, customers should be proactively provided with information, giving them control over their journey, helping them to track their progress and prepare for the next steps. The ability to offer accurate, real-time information would be particularly helpful in delivering step-changes in transport accessibility for customers with specific needs.
Personalisation is also key. By understanding individual preferences and travel behaviours, service providers are able to provide customised offers, recommendations and experiences that make rail travel a more compelling offer for customers.
Operational systems generate a lot of data, and importantly, so do passengers. Today, the step changes in network management and the experience for travelling passengers come from integrated, innovative uses of data and critically, data standards. As the availability of data advances, so does the potential for service improvement and new revenue sources.
It’s important to make use of new data set combinations, applications and interfaces that give your frontline teams service superpowers, whilst enabling more customers to self-serve.
Challenge 4: Rail travel is inaccessible, uninclusive and unsafe
Prioritising customers’ sense of safety and security is key to improving CX design in the rail industry.
That means ensuring all spaces are well-maintained and well-lit, with visible security systems to deter crime and help customers feel safe.
It’s also important to promote a welcoming and inclusive culture and enforce a zero-tolerance policy towards abuse and harassment.
Challenge 5: Rail is not a desirable industry to work in
Working in rail is perceived as a low-paying, potentially unsafe industry, often with awkward working hours and locations. That’s why the industry struggles to attract top talent.
Future rail services need to recast the roles of colleagues as journey facilitators, building relationships with customers, imparting local area knowledge, and promoting new first- and last-mile options.
A well-designed, customer-centred rail service can:
Challenge 6: A changing commuter landscape means customers are using rail stations differently
CX design allows us to reimagine stations as multifunctional hubs that offer a variety of useful services to customers, where they feel comfortable to congregate and meet friends, and that also provide additional revenue streams.
London’s St Pancras International station has been recognised as the UK’s number one station since it re-opened. To sustain this market-leading position in the face of growing demand, it was essential to maintain service levels for High Speed 1 (the high-speed rail service operating out of St Pancras).
To achieve this, our team researched best-in-class practice from other large transport hubs such as airports, retail spaces and stations, and developed the standard to support the delivery of existing operational agreements and measures.
We developed a common service standard, encompassing all areas at London's St Pancras International station, where customers interacted with facilities and services, so staff could provide an experience based on what customers and passengers valued most.
Challenge 7: Rail projects are often thought about in isolation, without considering regional socio-economic objectives
Large scale infrastructure projects have the potential to unlock the economic potential of their region.
A well designed, customer-centred rail service can create a dynamic ecosystem that attracts business and drives productivity.
Heathrow Express (HEX) wanted to understand how it could improve its passenger experience and increase the volume of passengers choosing to use the shuttle service between London Paddington Station and Heathrow Airport.
So the Engine team worked with HEX to complete an in-depth, qualitative passenger research study, including interviews with passengers travelling to and from the airport, and shadowing passengers onboard. From that, we developed a series of service and customer experience design recommendations, encompassing both short and mid-term improvements.
Customer experience strategy
The best rail experiences in the world have one thing in common. They take an active responsibility for the customer experience of all their customers and have invested in designing and building a holistic CX strategy where the end-to-end journey is mapped out and tangible.
When creating a CX strategy, we use an outside-in, inside-out approach, which means we look at both the business perspective and the customer's perspective; not just one or the other.
In order to enhance customer experience within your rail company, it’s important to step back and look at your customers' end-to-end experience in order to spot opportunities to design-out the pain points and design-in excellent service and revenue-earning services.
Download our Customer Experience Checklist to guide you through the five fundamental building blocks to help you craft your CX strategy, using tools that we use when we work with our rail clients.