Business grows to £220m a year
Evolvi Rail Systems, an online rail booking engine for corporate travellers, has reported a 47% increase in revenue for 2008.
The company, an independently run part of the Capita Group, said its rail business had grown from £150m a year in 2007 to £220m last year.
The company said it was now working with eight of the UK's top ten travel management companies (TMCs) and its growth was down to major contract gains and renewals.
It said one example of this was its involvement in a three way partnership with Carlson Wagonlit Travel and Amadeus to provide the UK Home Office with rail booking facilities.
Ken Cameron, Evolvi's managing director, said businesses had to use the expertise available through TMCs to ensure their rail travel was managed efficiently and delivered in the most cost-effective way possible.
He said increasingly TMCs were looking to Evolvi to drive self-booking systems on the desktops of their corporate customers.
There were now almost 1,000 Evolvi ticket printers sited in the workplace as this flexible approach to ticket fulfilment gathers pace, he said.
"The Home Office contract is a good indicator of the way the corporate market is moving," Mr Cameron said.
"Businesses want flexibility but they also want to ensure compliance with travel policy, manage costs effectively and tap into a ticketing system that's instantly available 24 hours a day, all year round."
Mr Cameron said that Evolvi, which was founded three years ago, was also working more closely with train operating companies (TOCs).
The benefits included moves towards mobile phone ticketing and smart cards.
"The market in corporate rail travel continues to expand - our focus over the coming years is to ride this growth curve by strengthening existing relationships, supporting TMCs as they broaden their reach into the corporate sector and ensuring that our technology pathway anticipates the major ticketing trends to come," he said.
www.evolvi.co.uk