Time for the trains to start to become more. Commuting from my little coastal town on the train has been quite a culture shock for me. I have never been a train person. I have however been trying to be conscious of my footprint, it gives me the opportunity to have a few beers in the afternoon and catch up on work and emails on the 45 minute to and from the city.
I have spent many hours in the London underground in short trips to and from where we stand and wait to escape to our next destination. The culture shock for me is relating to the commuters who travel 30 minutes to 90 minutes each way per day. I noticed a lot of people reading the paper, updating spreadsheets or, the majority, staring out the window with the “vast majority” sleeping.
I think it is time for City Rail to step up and treat the customer with a little more creative inspiration. Business development allows businesses to profit by doing something that is tangential to their core mission. In this case, travel. Sometimes the profit is so good, it becomes part of their core mission, other times it supports the brand and sometimes it just makes money. City Rail have a captive audience, why not capture them and encourage more people to ride the train by updating the services. Here is what uncluttered white spaces wants to see on trains this year:
1. WiFi: I counted 7 lap tops and 9 iPhones on my last trip home on my carriage alone. Surely City Rail can provide wireless service to connect the commuters to the internet. Ad the extra cost to the ticket or sell a code at the ticket office for wireless connectivity. This is a great opp currently being capitalized by some of the major airlines. City Rail could easily subsidize this with advertising on the home screen of your lap top as you log into the wireless connection. Easy.
2. BAR: Why not introduce a bar? Or lounge, the amount of seats that are available on the train could surely be shuffled to accommodate a bar or lounge carriage. Would be a great way to meet the people traveling in your direction at the same time. Cold beer, flat white, glass of red, online chatting with the neighbours seems a more inviting way to commute than punching out a few lazy zeds (zzz).
3. GAMING: Surely if we can connect with each other through WiFi on the commute, we can connect with each other through online gaming. Not my thing but surely better than staring at the back of a seat in front or updating spreadsheets. iPhone provide plenty of applications for multi gaming. Tap in.
4. SOCIAL NETWORKING: Develop applications to see who in your network is on the train. Surely we can do this through iPhone, facebook or various networking applications. The bar will also provide personal face to face networking opportunities.
5. TV & FILM: We have already established a wireless connection, how many people are watching movies on there iPods, iPhones, lap tops? A lot! Why not provide a streaming function for movies or television. I want options.
Trains have a rare captive audience. In Japan, they have built the whole mobile ecosystem around commuters. Time to get up to speed and start to provide opportunities for commuters to connect. Companies or organizations can be so focused on their core business that it never occurs to them to consider partnerships, licensing, publishing, acquisition and other arrangements that might change everything. Or in this case, attract more commuters.
Do you have any other idea’s we can pitch to the Train services in Sydney to see them up the anti? Share them with us.
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