Reshaping the booking process of international train tickets in Europe

Abstract

International train travel could serve as a more sustainable alternative to flying, especially for short distance journeys up to 750 km. Though both forms of transport have negative impacts, the environmental costs of travelling by train are significantly lower than travelling by plane (European Environmental Agency, 2021). Therefore, the European Union, governments, environmentalists and railway companies see great value in promoting train travel over flying for short distance journeys (Ministry of IenW, 2022).

In order to further promote this transition, a couple of action points have been identified by Donners (2018) to improve international train travel, ticketing being one of them. Unlike booking a flight ticket - which can be done within just a few clicks - finding, comparing, and booking a train ticket has proven to be a more challenging task. Recent research conducted by the University of St. Pölten in Austria (Preslmayr, 2022) revealed that one third of travellers are unable to complete their booking, highlighting the difficulty of this process. In order to promote the transition from air to rail for short distance journeys, the bookability of international train tickets in Europe needs to be improved.

It is difficult to change a complex system such as the international railway industry, but we can help travellers navigate it. This project aims to do that by redesigning a booking platform and app that support holiday travellers when booking and potentially rescheduling their international train journey in Europe with an intuitive booking process that provides clarity and guidance at every step leaving them feeling confident and excited about their journey.

An iterative design process led to the final design proposal. Created to be intuitive, supportive, adaptive and exciting, this redesign booking platform aims to ensure that every traveller, regardless of their prior travel experience, can easily book a suitable train ticket, leaving them feeling confident and excited about their journey ahead. The booking platform was designed to align with the user needs and decision making patterns. Core features to support this include route characteristics, transfer alternatives and search filters. A travel app was redesigned to complement the booking platform, creating a bridge between the booking process and the train journey. In case disruption does occur, the travellers are supported by the travel app that provides clear guidance for how they can continue their journey.

The user evaluation of the final design proposal shows promising results with an excellent score on its usability according to the adjective rating scale of Bangor et al. (2009) and positive responses from participants. To facilitate this redesigned user journey, some supportive processes need to be improved, including open communication and collaboration between carrier and ticket distributors, updated route information database and an EU wide disruption protocol.

All in all, it is difficult to change a large complex system such as the international train industry, but we can help travellers navigate it. While the railway system is expected to evolve, impactful changes may take time. Meanwhile, optimising services through redesigns can have a significant immediate effect on the travellers experience and provide access to a sizable potential customer segment. Therefore, further exploring and implementing the designs as proposed in this report will improve the bookability of international train tickets in Europe.