Rail is upping its game as a vital part of corporate travel programmes, as buyers demand ever more sophisticated booking and ticketing solutions
IF YOUR BUSINESS has a regular requirement for rail travel and you are not using an online system to book in advance, you are losing out. Walk-up fares (referred to by National Rail as Anytime) increased by an average of 6 per cent in January and will increase by a similar amount in January 2013, as the government shifts more of the cost of running the railways from the taxpayer to the traveller.
High-profile TV advertising by Thetrainline.com, and also by new entrant Redspottedhanky, has pushed the “book ahead” message through to consumers, too. Many people now understand that big savings are possible by advance booking, but not on every train and every route. High capacity, high frequency services to and from London offer the best opportunities to make savings, especially if booked well before the deadline of 6pm on the day before travel.
With most businesses now understanding the need for advance booking, the major online retailers Evolvi, working exclusively through travel management companies (TMCs), and Thetrainline.com are concentrating on enhancements to management information (MI) and policy compliance, and new forms of ticketing. They have yet to feel the effects of any new competitors, but Redspottedhanky has developed a system for business and Raileasy4business has also entered the market. Click Travel has created its own system, Open Rail, which was demonstrated at this year’s Business Travel Show.
The event was also used to debut Evolvi-ng (the “ng” is for “new generation”), the most significant re-launch for Evolvi since it started six years ago. New features include pre-trip authorisation, a shopping basket where you can book up to eight trips for up to eight passengers, a single-click suggested fare, and instant ticket-on-departure (TOD) at station ticket machines, rather than having to wait two hours before you could collect a ticket at the station.
Evolvi sales director Jon Reeve says developing the shopping basket was complex, due to the need to attribute cost-centre codes for, potentially, up to 64 separate transactions. Pre-trip authorisation is also critical for driving down costs. “Without purchasing controls in place, the average ticket value can go through the roof,” he says. “The average ticket value booked through Evolvi last year was £60.85 compared to £61 in 2010, despite the introduction of a general 6.2 per cent fares hike at the start of 2011. We can see that more corporates are booking in advance, as the average ticket value in 2009 was £66.”
Record year
Evolvi notched up a record year in 2011, with a 9 per cent rise in revenue to £286 million and a 10 per cent increase in transactions to 4.7 million. Average ticket values have been kept flat, not only because more people buy advance tickets, but because fewer people are travelling in first class due to the recession and the clampdown on public sector spending.
Thetrainline.com has also introduced new functionality, including a “cheapest ticket” option that flags up potential savings of up to 66 per cent compared to the Anytime fare. It is now launching a refund-and-rebook service on advance tickets, available up to two hours before departure time.
Redspottedhanky remains the only system with a loyalty scheme, offering 1p credit for every £1 spent, which businesses can retain or pass on to their employees as a perk. Companies opening a business account get six weeks’ free credit, and the system includes a lowest-fare finder.
The Open Rail system developed by Click Travel is designed to show the lowest available fare every time, without users having to search for it. It has teamed up with Airplus International so that rail spend can be charged to the Airplus card at no extra cost, which is claimed to offer significant savings.
Evolvi user Capita Business Travel is refining the system to offer further advantages to customers. It booked more than one million corporate rail tickets for the first time in 2011, with 89 per cent of transactions made by self-booking compared to 78 per cent in 2010.
Capita’s head of rail product, Raj Sachdave, says: “Our rail knowledge and expertise means we’re delivering not just cost savings but an enhanced experience, both before and after the journey is booked. For example, we can advise customers about the cost of station parking, or whether a station has a first class lounge.
We can ask customers if they are stuck in traffic and need to re-book, and even advise customers on their mobiles of the departure platform before this is put up on the departures board at stations.”
Corporates speak out
Convenience and cost savings are the main reasons why corporates are enthusiastic about rail self-booking systems, but better training for the novice user is also in demand. One of Thetrainline.com’s biggest corporate users is the BBC, with dedicated ticket machines at seven of its offices. The online adoption rate is now 92 per cent, and average ticket prices have come down by 20 per cent in the last four years.
Tracey Morris is head of sourcing and procurement at the BBC. She says: “Thetrainline.com is a booking tool that many people also use at home, so they are already familiar with it. The drop-down menu will tell you if you are trying to book out of policy, and you can’t proceed until you say why. This provokes the thought – can you go cheaper by booking a later train? As we move out of London to more regional hubs, meetings are being arranged for later in the morning to take advantage of lower fares.
“The system is pretty state-of-the-art, but we would like to see the CO2 information become more visible as we have an initiative querying whether people have to travel at all,” says Morris.
BT (formerly British Telecom) is another major customer of Thetrainline.com. Senior travel buyer at BT, Celia Gullen, says: “The three reasons we need a specialist rail supplier are to control costs, to obtain very good MI, and to fulfil our duty of care. We have a feed from Thetrainline.com into our security system, so if there are any incidents on the rail network, we know about them.
“The only thing causing us concern is that season tickets are not yet bookable on the system. If someone needs a weekly or monthly ticket as they are visiting a customer regularly, that has to be booked separately.”
Monica Dingwall recently moved to bookmakers William Hill, having introduced a self-booking system in her previous job, and hopes to do the same at her new employer. William Hill uses Evolvi in conjunction with a TMC, but self-booking has not yet been adopted. “Education is absolutely critical, and this is where the systems could help more,” she says. “The novice user doesn’t understand all the different fare types, so interactive online training would be useful. Plain English would be a good idea – such as ‘fixed ticket’ rather than ‘Anytime’.
“The systems providers also need to work more closely with train operators to ensure that all their content is displayed. A small percentage of tickets are only available through a train operator’s own website, but I often have to explain this to the end user.
“I am interested to see new entrants coming into the market, as more competition would be good. Cost is becoming an issue as the commission received by TMCs is reduced, and train operators can manipulate the timetable so that the first train offering discounted travel does not arrive in London until later in the morning. The people who actually book the tickets need to be very savvy.”
Mobile ticketing: the next big thing?
SMARTPHONES HAVE BECOME so prevalent over the last year or two that there is growing demand for mobiles to be used to deliver rail tickets (as a barcode) and other information. But as with other types of non-conventional ticketing, systems suppliers are limited by what the rail industry can support.
As with plain paper-ticketing, the major problem is fraud – which is why only advance tickets, linked to a seat reservation, can be sent to a mobile device or printed on plain paper. There is nothing to stop someone printing out a full-fare Anytime ticket again and again until train operators develop the technology to read and then cancel these tickets electronically.
Smart-card ticketing – similar to the Oyster card in London but applicable to pre-booked tickets nationwide – is another issue. Although the card can read when a journey is completed and is not susceptible to fraud, train operators don’t yet have the technology at ticket gates or on hand-held devices carried by the train manager to process a smart card. Introducing this technology will be made a condition of new franchises, but, realistically, it is at least several years away. Several major franchises are up for grabs in the next 18 months, including those held by Virgin Trains, First Great Western and the East Coast route.
Thetrainline.com was the first online retailer to introduce a mobile app, but this is aimed at consumers and does not have specific business applications. The new app just introduced by Evolvi is, however, a full business system.
Clare Morrissey, head of account management for Thetrainline.com, says: “For business customers, the phone is good for receiving a bar-coded ticket but not for the end-to-end transaction. Most have laptops on which they can do all the rest. “TOD at station ticket machines is the primary solution. Some large customers have their own ticketing machines on site, but there will be less of a requirement for these when we roll out plain paper-ticketing. This is only available on CrossCountry trains at present, but other operators will soon follow. Because only advance tickets can be printed or sent to mobile phones, it reinforces the message about booking in advance to save money.”
She adds: “The reality is that given short franchise terms left to run, many train operators have been slow to adopt smart ticketing given the level of investment required. We are about to roll out smart fulfilment to our third operator and this method is certainly here to stay. Central to the new West Coast franchise [currently held by Virgin] is the introduction of smart ticketing on all ticket types.”
Evolvi launched a fully-functioning mobile system at the Business Travel Show, but has put the development of plain paper-ticketing on hold. It can, however, provide dedicated desk-top printers, in addition to walk-up ticket machines and instant access to around 900 ticket machines at stations. Evolvi sales director Jon Reeve explains: “All the compliance and cost-centre attribution benefits of Evolvi-ng are automatically defined and integrated into client reports and MI on the app. There is a lot of noise about mobile ticketing, but as with plain paper-ticketing, it is limited to advance fares and, therefore, of limited use to corporates.”
Of course there are other ways in which a mobile can help the rail traveller. Chiltern Railways’ app, for example, gives you live departure and arrival information at all stations nationwide, and not just on its own route network. Google Maps has teamed up with Thetrainline.com so that users can have train, route and timetable information for more than 2,500 stations and 170,000 trips nationwide at their fingertips.
Buyers are keen to see mobile ticketing pushed forwards, due to frustrations with existing delivery methods. BT’s Celia Gullen says: “With print-at-home or a barcode, you have the satisfaction of having the ticket in your hand or on your mobile. We have sold a self-booking system to our people by explaining that they don’t have to queue at station ticket offices, but station ticket machines have become so popular that you often have to queue at them instead. We want to make things as simple as possible, and a smart card that can be read on the train is the next stage.”
The BBC’s Tracey Morris points out that her staff travel nationwide, and that ticket machines are still not available at many remote stations. “People keep asking to be able to print tickets in the office, although we have walk-up kiosks in our main hubs,” she says. “People now use smartphones for everything, so they do expect to use them for rail tickets. But all tickets need to be linked to each individual’s cost code.”