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NAVITAIRE CASE STUDY | NAVITAIRE RAIL
At the Heart of Innovation: Navitaire Rail
Powers a Revolutionary Rail Company
NAVITAIRE CASE STUDY | NAVITAIRE RAIL
Rail has always has been a popular way to travel in Europe. The vast rail network
stretching across the continent provides vital connections among major cities, towns
and villages from Copenhagen to Naples, Lisbon to Prague, and thousands of points in
between. Each year, hundreds of millions of passengers in Europe rely on trains to take them
to meet business clients, on holiday, or to visit friends and loved ones both near and far.
One of the leading operators in the European rail system — which has more than US $25
billion in annual revenue, 180,000 employees, and millions of passengers — has a proud
history of innovation that has kept it on the forefront of European travel for decades.
However, in the early years of the new millennium, storm clouds were forming on the
horizon. The emergence of low-cost airlines was forecast to accelerate dramatically in
coming years — ultimately claiming nearly one-third of air travel in Europe. With their low
prices, fast travel times, and technology-driven customer experiences, these airlines would
pose a significant competitive threat to traditional rail companies such as this operator.
In addition, as part of its move toward becoming a more integrated bloc, the European
Union announced that all long-distance passenger rail services within the EU would be
deregulated. While this move would open up opportunities for the operator to provide
service to new markets outside its own country, it also could make the company’s domination
of its home market vulnerable to other countries’ rail services.
In light of these developments, the company saw an opportunity to launch a new, highspeed, low-cost rail brand specifically designed to compete with low-price airlines. To fulfill
this mission, this new brand would need to match these airlines on price, service, and the
overall customer experience — attracting and retaining a new generation of rail customers
in the process.
The embodiment of this new brand was created via a new subsidiary designed to
emulate — and ultimately surpass — the ease with which airline customers could plan
their trips, choose seats, and pay for their travel online. This capability stood in stark
contrast to the typical experience of a rail traveler, which often involved long waits,
complicated trip planning, and other hassles. In addition to streamlining trip planning
and providing a more up-to-date customer experience, the new subsidiary was built to
achieve cost advantages over the traditional rail distribution model by improving customer
self-service capabilities and reducing the cost of ticket sales and distribution.
The Search For a Solution
While developing the concept of this new brand, executives quickly recognized that a key
to its success would be its underlying technology infrastructure. In particular, the company
needed a solution that could provide a cutting-edge, Internet-enabled customer experience
that would minimize the need for human intervention, as well as simplify and speed up the
customer buying process. The question was, which solution met these key criteria?
The answer was found in the skies, from where the original inspiration for the brand had
come. Many of the low-cost airlines that the company sought to emulate were using New
Skies®, a leading travel reservation system from Navitaire. While this system was designed
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NAVITAIRE CASE STUDY | NAVITAIRE RAIL
specifically for use by airlines, company executives saw its potential application to rail
service and approached Navitaire for help with tailoring the solution to fit its needs.
Working closely with Navitaire, the company used the Navitaire core reservations
system’s Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to optimize the platform for its rail
business model. The resulting system was designed to achieve the new rail company’s
goals of cost-effectively providing customers with an experience suitable for one of
Europe’s first high-speed, low-price rail companies. In fact, the Navitaire reservation
solution was instrumental to the very thing that differentiated this new brand from
traditional rail companies: fast, modern, convenient and affordable service on the
customer’s terms.
Over the years, both market dynamics and Navitaire’s technological capabilities have
continued to evolve. The younger travelers who have embraced the brand’s value
proposition have become even more demanding of a satisfying customer experience
that can be managed online and via mobile devices, and want access to other services
that can make travel more enjoyable. Plus, the speed with which new innovations must
be brought to market to meet customer needs has quickened considerably, thus requiring
the company’s operations to be even more nimble and flexible. Navitaire's next-generation
reservation system for rail — dubbed Navitaire Rail, based on its advanced airline platform
New Skies — is designed to help leading rail companies keep up with these demands.
The Core of an
Innovative Business
Navitaire Rail is at the very core of the railway’s marketing, selling, and customer
relationship processes, and serves as the foundation for its ongoing growth and evolution.
Navitaire Rail is the central integration point for several critical business processes,
including sales, distribution, virtual ticketing, and payments. In addition, Navitaire Rail
features APIs that make it easier for new ticket distributors and travel service providers
to closely integrate their operations with the company. This, in turn, allows the operator to
continually expand the channels through which it can sell tickets and the ways in which it
can better serve passengers.
This is just one of several innovative capabilities that Navitaire Rail has enabled the
company to develop, and that support the entire customer experience. Another example:
distinct customer environments that travelers can select based on their needs and
preferences. The company offers three such environments, tailored to the relative
degree of quiet or entertainment the traveler desires. For instance, customers can choose
an interactive, social environment including in-seat food service, the ability to interact with
each other via social networking prior to or during trips, and games for children. Those
who prefer a more sedate experience can choose another environment that enables
them to sleep or work during their trip. A third environment enables the railway to optimize
train utilization in off-peak times and is offered only at night. Travelers who select this
environment are treated to on-train entertainment that includes live performances by
celebrities, dancing and a party atmosphere.
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NAVITAIRE CASE STUDY | NAVITAIRE RAIL
These distinct customer environments are designed to help overcome what the railway
has identified as one of its biggest obstacles to competing with airlines: longer travel
times. Indeed, while its trains run at more than 300 kilometers per hour and can go
between major destinations in only three hours, an airliner can make the same trip in one
hour. Providing different customer environments enables the operator to “add value” to this
extended travel time — and the company’s research has shown that their availability has
measurably raised European consumers’ expectations for travel.
More Choices, More Revenue
and More Profit
Navitaire Rail is instrumental to the provision of these environments. The system allows
customers to choose the desired environment during the reservation process, and then
further customize their experience by choosing specific seats based on seat attributes
(such as whether it is forward- or backward-facing, or a window or aisle seat) and
purchasing additional ancillary services such as DVD rentals or tickets to on-train concerts.
In addition, Navitaire Rail allows the company to easily vary the ancillary items for sale by
market — for instance, it can sell tickets to major art exhibitions or other events planned
in destination cities.
Navitaire Rail’s exclusive Seating capabilities enable the railway to market unique seat
characteristics such as seat size, power outlet access, or near-table to further enhance
customers’ travel experience. And reflecting the growing number of ways in which
customers like to pay for travel, Navitaire Rail allows a wide variety of payment
methods, including credit cards, gift certificates, travel passes, customer credit and
vouchers. The end result: Customers are attracted to and retained by experiences tailored
to their specific preferences, and the operator has an enhanced ability to sell greater
volumes of profitable ancillary services.
Once the traveler’s purchase has been completed, Navitaire Rail enables the ticketing
process to be completely virtual. The system provides each customer with a twodimensional barcode that can be scanned by train conductors’ mobile devices — whether
the barcode has been printed or is simply displayed on the screen of the customer’s
phone. Beyond eliminating the need to retain a piece of paper while traveling, Navitaire
Rail also allows conductors to change a customer’s environment or seat assignment, view
seating maps and passenger lists, and sell ancillary services and amenities before and
after the train leaves the station — all with their mobile devices. And perhaps one of the
biggest benefits of the passenger itinerary barcode is that travelers do not have to wait
in queues at the ticket office desks, kiosks or stations. Instead, they head straight for the
platform and board their trains.
Operationally, Navitaire Rail is a managed service provided by Navitaire. Thus, the railway
has gained access to these capabilities without the overhead and resource commitments
required to purchase, develop, and maintain their own system. Furthermore, Navitaire’s
community software model allows the operator to benefit from ongoing system
improvements and enhancements driven by other Navitaire reservations customers,
including more than 50 airlines. The shared reservations platform provides synergistic
value to rail and airline customers, which also could be extended to other modes of
transportation (such as buses and ferries) in the future.
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NAVITAIRE CASE STUDY | NAVITAIRE RAIL
Using Customer Data
to Build Loyalty
One of the keys to providing world-class service is being able to retain and use
information about customers and their preferences and experiences. Doing so allows
a company to tailor the service it provides to the individual wants and needs of each
customer, boosting their loyalty in the process. However, for many rail companies and
airlines, this information is kept in siloed databases that lack integration with each other
and prevent an holistic view of the customer.
Navitaire Rail’s Online Data Store (ODS) allows the railway to overcome this challenge.
The ODS gathers and organizes data regarding each customer’s end-to-end experience
and then makes that data readily available to front-line customer service personnel.
As an example, if a customer or a group of customers experience a delay while travelling
aboard one of the company’s trains, Navitaire Rail allows back-office staff to proactively
identify them and offer a travel voucher or other compensation. In addition, the system
can be used to provide customers with gifts or special services in recognition of
important events such as birthdays. In sum, Navitaire Rail’s ODS allows the company
to take a more sophisticated approach to collecting and utilizing customer data, boosting
customer loyalty in the process.
Conclusion
By all accounts, this new brand has been a major success for its parent company and has
been very popular with travelers. Today, the company has booked more than $200 million
in revenue and carried several million passengers.
In fact, the company has transformed the way that European travelers perceive rail travel,
and the Navitaire Rail system has been at the heart of this transformation. From providing
fast and easy booking, to enabling customers to create their own personalized experiences,
to empowering employees to more easily provide high-quality service, Navitaire Rail helps
the railway deliver what it takes to win the loyalty of today’s more demanding consumers.
Such loyalty will be critical to the company’s continued competition with low-cost airlines,
as well as with emerging EU rail entrants in newly deregulated long-distance rail markets.
And the advances continue. The company has added 10 new trains to its fleet and a
variety of new services based on Navitaire Rail — including a SmartWatch customer
application and iPhone and Android applications for virtual ticketing and customer
relationship management.
According to a company executive, Navitaire has been instrumental in enabling it to
achieve its goals — and to build a platform to accommodate future growth. “In the coming
years, competition for travelers is only going to increase, so we must constantly innovate to
differentiate ourselves and strengthen customer loyalty,” the executive said. “Navitaire Rail
is critical to our ability to do that and provide the service and experience that customers
want and that keeps them coming back.”
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Navitaire delivers industry-leading technology services that help
enable growth, profitability and innovation to more than 50
airlines and rail companies worldwide, including many of the world’s
most successful airlines. Navitaire offers a full suite of proven
solutions to help clients grow their business, reduce costs, capture
new revenue sources and readily connect with digital customers
and business partners.
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Minneapolis, MN 55402-2443 USA
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Navitaire and its logo are
trademarks of Navitaire.
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