As a regular Eurostar user, this is potentially quite an interesting and important development for me – so here is where it works (and doesn’t) for a cross-channel road warrior.

Pros:

• Nice user experience
• Fast interaction
• Mobile boarding passes work – OFFICIAL!

Cons:

• Relies too much on network connection
• No seat selection
• Some disconnection fromthe web platform

Overview

The app is well designed with simple navigation and functionality: bookings, tickets, user account, help.

However, it relies on always-on data network, even for static information like help, user profile data and existing bookings.

oarding passes do not remain permanently stored locally on the handset, which is going to be a critical problem when travellers check-in abroad, without data network access (this behaviour seems random, so it could be just an early release bug).

Booking process

The booking process is quite straightforward, with an innovative horizontal train-shaped slider to select depart and return stations with a single tap (even with big fingers).

It’s a smart idea to exploit the short depart/return train station list into simple interaction, instead of using classic input boxes or dropdown lists.

Date selection follows the same easy tap concept, with the next seven days easily laid out on a horizontal slider. For further dates, a classic rolodex-style calendar pops out.

Unfortunately, the return date is not automatically adjusted to the departure date.

Availability and pricing is displayed by order of train departing time, with an intuitive vertical scroll layout, and expandable panels to select the preferred class of service and rate.

Payment happens through entering credit card details as on the web site. Input fields and checkboxes could be made bigger to make them more easily tappable with fingers.

A mobile booking is not immediately available in the booking list, which is a bit disconcerting, but after a few minutes there it is. The sync can also be triggered manually.

Mobile boarding passes

Booked itineraries come ready with oneway or return mobile boarding passes, using aztec 2D barcodes.

The barcode can be displayed on the phone to go through the check-in gates automatically.

Using barcodes on smartphones used to work even previously, by displaying the code from the PDF file – however they were not officially accepted and travellers were still required to carry the printed tickets.

It’s possible to use the mobile apps to book for multiple passengers, however mobile boarding passes are only available for 1 pax bookings (the phone owner).

Tickets for multiple people will need be printed at home or at the station kiosk as usual.

Areas of improvement

The major gap compared to the web booking process is the lack of seat selection functionality.

For frequent travellers, the ability to chose at least the coach number is critical, because of the availability (or lack) of power plugs in specific coaches.

An area which needs further work is the user experience synchronisation between mobile and web environments. It’s quite surprising that this does not come out of the box, as everything should be handled by the same backend.

For example, web or offline bookings can be imported into the app, but the operation is manual – it would have been great if the synch happened automatically.

The reverse does not work at all: mobile bookings are not visible on the web user account, even when searching manually.

For no apparent reason, there is a new mobile booking confirmation e-mail, which is different from a standard web booking e-mail.

To a product manager, this resonates with double design efforts, double localisation, double testing, double bug fixing, and double maintenance going forward.

Funny enough, the mobile booking e-mail is not mentioning mobile boarding passes at all. Instead it’s instructing travellers to print tickets at home or at the station.

Similarly, the mobile boarding pass is not promoted/highlighted as a new option on the web booking flow.

In a nutshell

Eurostar mobile apps are a nice first step in the mobile arena, and the company has been smart to not just follow existing practices but think innovatively about improving the user experience.

Initial glitches can certainly be ironed out in the next sprint, and travellers can only benefit from having direct access to bookings and mobile boarding passes in their pocket.

Data released today shows that the 150 million people viewing reviews, ratings and opinions every month on sites other than TripAdvisor is three times higher than the average of 50 million hitting the main site on a monthly basis.

TripAdvisor claims to have over 250 partnerships in place to include to run its content on other sites, with some of the heavyweights of the web including mothership Expedia (in some countries), EasyJet and Eurostar all taking part.

Other partners include tourism boards, hotel chains and what it terms “businesses and organisations”.

The gradual spread of the brand into many corners of the web continues as there are now 30,000 different websites carrying so-called TripAdvisor “badges” – widgets such as its “Recommended On”, “Bravo!” and “What’s Nearby” tools.

So while the concept of white labelling as part of an ecommerce strategy has often been met with mixed results (such as embedded tools on media sites from metasearch providers – the Telegraph and Guardian newspaper websites, for example, went through a string of white labels in the mid-2000s), a pure content play appears to yield more sustainable results – at least for TripAdvisor.

TripAdvisor says it is unable to provide further data on the ratio of where the 150 million people are coming from – for example, does 80% of the views from external sites come from 20% of the partners, etc.

The Expedia Affiliate Network, formerly called WWTE, had been providing hotel bookings to Eurostar on a private label basis for at least five years.

In the joint Eurostar-Orbitz announcement about the new partnership, neither party directly addressed why Expedia was replaced.

Ronnie Gurion, president of Orbitz Worldwide Distribution, characterized the dynamics of the deal as involving “a highly competitive bid process…”

And, Matthias Mahr, Eurostar’s head of e-Commerce and Customer management, stated:

The Orbitz Worldwide solution is unique in its ability to combine comprehensive contents from tens of thousands of hotel partners with a technology platform that gives Eurostar unmatched functionality and customization. As demand for end-to-end, high-speed rail accelerates across Europe, this partnership allows us to offer customers one-stop shopping on Eurostar.com for the best deals on complementary travel products and services.

Eurostar spokeswoman Lucy Drake added: “Expedia provided the same service for us for several years, but we decided to review our partners and suppliers last year and after a procurement process Orbitz was appointed as their replacement.”

The Orbitz private label solution uses XML and enables Eurostar customers to book hotels standalone or part of a vacation package. Much of the technology and ancillary merchandising capabilities in the Orbitz solution comes through a technology and marketing partnership with iSeatz.

In an ironic twist, the hotel displays from Orbitz on Eurostar.com will continue to display user reviews from TripAdvisor, which is owned by Expedia.

“That’s the beauty of our private label solution,” says Orbitz Worldwide spokesman Brian Hoyt. “We can customize a solution that has that parameter in place.”

For Orbitz, the deal increases its foothold a bit in the hotel business in Europe, where it has lagged.

And, Eurostar hopes to increase ancillary revenue across Europe through the agreement.

Orbitz and iSeatz also have private label partnerships with other online travel sites, including Delta.com, Amtrak.com, LAN.com and AlaskaAir.com.

Apart from moving to a more emotional and modern identity, the objective of the new branding is to position Eurostar as a European train service leader, not just limited to crossing the English Channel.

The deployment is to be completed by 5 April 2011, also with the roll-out of a new website.

The new website is announced to be 20% faster and easier to use, in particular when building multi-segment itineraries beyond the basic London-Paris-Brussels routes.

In a parallel move to airlines, Eurostar will also release new mobile apps including mobile check-in using mobile boarding passes with 2D Aztech codes.

Up until now, the print-at-home PDF boarding passes could technically be displayed on a mobile device and used to go through gates, but it was still mandatory to carry a printed paper copy.

Needless to say, the design community is quite critical about the new logo and branding.

The new logo is designed as a dynamic 3D sculpture of a lowercase “e”, available under different perspectives and even textures like iron, gold, wood or marble.

It’s supposed to represent a fast train passing through a tunnel, which some are seeing as a cartoonish tongue and mouth, and other less innocent metaphores. To others, it reminds them of Internet Explorer with a touch of Coca-Cola!

The main concern is that a 3D sculpture, once flattened down on print, posters and indoor surfaces, loses most of its appeal and creates undue complexity with shading effects.

There is a good dose of personal taste going into branding and design, and I personally like the sense of solidity of the new brand.

Maybe it’s just because I ride on Eurostar weekly, and I need it to remain very solid.

This is perhaps even more appropriate when something goes wrong. Reach out to customers on Twitter, Facebook et al and be honest and open about whatever happened.

The presidents of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air went one further this morning when they both starred in a YouTube video to apologise for a serious IT failure affecting both airlines and passengers.

Around 12,000 people were affected and 140 flights cancelled or experienced delays as a result of the failure of a central computer system used for flight planning.

Such public apologies are not only rare but extremely difficult to get right (see the notoriously awkward clip by ex-Eurostar CEO Richard Brown following the chaos of Christmas 2009).

So did Glenn Johnson and Brad Tilden, presidents of Horizon and Alaska respectively, get it right? Or was it a PR/social-driven exercise that fails to hit the mark?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD_cce6kkCY

The short answer was a resounding “no”.

The group of representatives from mainly online travel agencies appeared to still be concentrating on the world of airlines as the primary mode of transport for intra-European journeys.

Some are arguing that this is the wrong strategy. But why?

In short, high-speed rail travel is growing at phenomenal rate in Europe, spearheaded by the French TGV system in the 1970s and 1980s, Eurostar’s launch and the German ICE in the 1990s, but more recently through services introduced in Spain and Italy and upgrading of existing networks.

Many suggest that if the 1990s and 2000s were the heady decades for low cost air carriers in Europe, then the next ten will be when rail travel comes to the fore.

So to see a collection of top folk representing many of the leading online intermediaries in Europe not considering rail is perhaps a little scary.

Here is some context.

Pre-Eurostar, London to Paris was one of the world’s busiest air routes – but since the high-speed line was completed between the two capitals the percentage of air travel has dropped to less than 20%.

Madrid to Barcelona then took over the mantle (with 971 scheduled flights per week in each direction), but since 2007, after the opening of the high-speed line, air now accounts for less than 40%.

There are now countless other routes being upgraded and various new builds across Europe and Asia, with journey times between major cities falling dramatically. Some estimates say around $200 billion of capital investment worldwide in high-speed rail.

This is obviously going to put further pressure on short haul carriers, but also why companies such as Amadeus and Travelport on the GDS side, and SilverRail Technologies [TLabs Showcase], are putting either a large focus on or have built an entire business on European rail growth, and to a lesser extent on North American rail evolving to high-speed status.

SilverRail VP of commercial Cameron Jones says when the journey time slips below 3.5 hours then rail is now becoming the preferred method of transport, illustrated here (the green line indicating the change to the Madrid-Barcelona route):

Here, for example, is a chart showing what happened on the Madrid-Seville route before and after a high-speed rail line was built:

But while SilverRail and the GDSs have a vested interest in talking up what is happening on the ground with the high-speed rail revolution, it is perhaps somewhat disconcerting that many travel companies are either ignoring or playing down the role of rail in the coming years.

It is not just point-to-point (and return) journeys. Some believe the traditional European package holidays will be transformed when high-speed rail connects northern European cities with the warmer climes of the Mediterranean resorts – a change which will also effect dynamic packaging, multi-city trips and consumer protection issues.

There is also the heady combination of rail+air combination fares (interlining and code shares) in the future.

Perhaps the biggest question mark is whether such a wholesale overhaul of transportation will actually be embraced by consumers (jumping on a plane for a foreign holiday, for example, is still synonymous for many with the annual holiday than the train).

A SilverRail consumer poll of around 300 saw three out of five say they would choose rail over air if the cost was same or better, while two-thirds say would add an hour of total travel time to a trip (by rail) if they could avoid airport security lines and baggage fees.

Unsurprisingly for a rail technology provider poll, but interesting nonetheless, 90% say they would like to see rail fares displayed alongside flights when searching for prices on travel sites (such as what metasearch engine Momondo is already doing).

So if consumer desire is there, the infrastructure is either there or coming, and data shows what happens to a route when high speed rail services kicks in, why are online travel agencies not putting rail as a high priority?

Perhaps the travel industry’s obsession with air needs cooling down…

The What’s Your Lamest Excuse? campaign runs for the next three months and is all about getting customers to upload a video outlining their most ridiculous reason for wanting to take a journey on Eurostar.

Branding – tick. User generated content – tick. Social element?

Videos are then voted on by other visitors to the site and they are then encouraged to share in the usual places.

Eurostar will announce a winner every two weeks (the one with the most votes – once again, an ideal situation for the entrees to persuade people in their social networks to visit the site and vote).

The shortlisted entries will then get a chance to win 12 pairs of return tickets on the rail operator by making a film of the trip taken when they won their particular round.

The video upload system automatically populates a YouTube channel, although after two weeks the most popular clip has only 1,110 views.

The winner of the first round:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6nmQJycmQA

Of course, many will chuckle at the irony of a Eurostar social media campaign around lame excuses given its experience in December 2009.

Launched as a closed testing site in July 2010 at the same time as the official unveiling of its parent company, SilverRail Technologies, Quno has added a number of new features ahead of being unleashed on the UK market.

A new timetable interface has been developed in recent months and improvements to the results and bookings sections of the site.

Quno claims it will be a leading OTA for rail travel after securing agreements with all UK rail operators and coordinating ticketing through the UK’s Association of Train Operating Companies.

Figures from ATOC suggest around two-thirds of UK rail passengers are still buying tickets from a station booking office.

The marketplace is ripe for sites such as Quno to move in and grow, says managing director Jeremy Acklam, a former-business development director at market leader in online train information, TheTrainLine.

Acklam says Eurostar services will be added by the end of 2010 and the rest of the fast-growing Europe rail network (much of it now high-speed) added over the course of the next two years.

The operator is investing around £700 million in ten new Siemens-made trains – known as e320s, as they run at 320 km/h – to enter service between London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and further afield.

The investment is part of a simultaneous move to make Eurostar a standalone company rather than part-owned by other organisations.

The company says the new trains will be able to carry 900 passengers (up from the 750 on existing services), but for the tech-heads the good bit comes in with confirmation that each train will have interactive entertainment systems such as on-demand video, music and new-feeds.

The technology will also be extended to the older units during 2011.

An official says further details about the extent of the on-board entertainment systems will be made shortly, so whether these are toys only for first class passengers or the entire range of seats is unclear.

A short clip giving a glimpse of the new trains and an interview with CEO Nicholas Petrovic:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IJADuyfKXE

The European high-speed rail operator reckons the new system, Europe by Eurostar, encourages people to travel around Europe and book their own get-aways.

“Visitors will have the option to post online their comments and tips once they’ve returned from their trip,” Eurostar says.

There is also the now obligatory use of “influential bloggers” to write guests post on the platform, “sharing experiences from their visits to Europe.”

The reality is slightly different. Eurostar has simply integrated destination content from a previous platform and thrown in a handy map to find destinations in France and other countries the operators services.

The “social media platform” element is allowing users to leaves comments or tips against other articles and find out how to follow on Twitter and Facebook.

Needless to say, Eurostar’s Facebook page is where the action and engagement is taking place, not on Europe by Eurostar.

Further contact with the operator reveals that drivers will NOT be carrying smartphones after all, as the company suggests on its website.

An official says drivers will have better onboard communication, smartphones are reserved for station-based managers – although a subsequent release says train managers will have them.

Original post:

Eurostar has recognised the communication screw-ups that took place during its calamitous mechanical failure before Christmas and is rolling out what it says are “major improvements”.

Following the release today of a stinging independent report, Eurostar accepts much of the criticism levelled at it following a series of train breakdowns in the Channel Tunnel between France and the UK which caused confusion in carriages and also at the line’s various terminals.

The service was disrupted as a result of the locomotives failing when apparently unusually fine and very cold snow entered engine grilles and began melting once the trains entered the tunnel, causing the engines to fail.

As a result of the problems experienced on-board, when passengers were unaware of the situation and evacuation procedures, Eurostars says drivers and train managers will be armed with smartphones “so they have access to the latest information to communicate to passengers”.

In addition, the supposed Twitter storm that erupted as friends and families desperately tried to find out what was happening at terminals in London, Brussels and Paris is also being addressed.

The operator says it has developed “real-time” systems so passengers and customers can access information about delays or problems via its website.

It promises to beef up email and SMS alert systems alongside using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to improve the flow of information about disruption to services.

NB: Eurostar’s full response to the review.

As it stands, services from London St Pancras International to Paris and Brussels are suspended as engineers attempt to work out what went wrong on Friday night and Saturday amid calls for a full investigation.

There was plenty of hand-wringing over the weekend about the failure of Eurostar officials to communicate to passengers what was going on via Twitter – a perfectly acceptable but inevitably and solely Twitter-driven level of outrage curiously not seen on the same scale earlier in the week when FlyGlobespan collapsed.

The reality is that Eurostargate (the events have probably been given that name by a national newspaper somewhere) is far more serious than just how the digerati felt Twitter might have been used to contact people waiting for relatives stuck on the trains (although, yes, it should’ve been used as ANOTHER communication channel).

The most important elements of the debacle are as follows:

• Why did six hi-tech trains break down in such circumstances? Some might argue that this isn’t the first time England and France have experienced extremely cold weather in the 15 years of operation by Eurostar.
• Why did the evacuation procedures on one of the newest and, once again, technologically advanced lines and state-of-the-art tunnels in the world appear to fail so spectacularly?
• Why did Eurotunnel, which runs freight and passenger services between Folkestone and Calais, appear to stay in the background and attempt to blame everyone else [as this press release indicates]? [NB: More on this from Eurostarclient]
• Why was the wider communications strategy (on the train and to the wider world) so mediocre given that a few thousand people were trapped in the tunnel? There are already calls for the heads of the PR team, a department run by Simon Montague, himself a former-BBC journalist.

In Eurostar’s defence, since the weekend it has massively improved its communications with the outside world, including a rapidly put together YouTube apology from its rather uncomfortable-looking CEO Richard Brown.

Once again, search and the social web played an influential part during the events.

Twitter, inevitably, came into its own with advice being passed on between travellers expecting to head to France or vice versa in the days following the breakdown.

But, with equal predictability, misinformation and blatant messing about played a part, posing questions once again as how to make real-time results in search engines more relevant and trustworthy.

Meanwhile, Eurostar’s website may have been slow off the mark initially but by the morning after the incident it was providing some (but not a huge amount of) information for travellers.

The site saw almost a 250% increase in traffic on Saturday 19 December from the previous day, according to Experian Hitwise UK.

There is an argument that in such extreme circumstances a static site should kick in automatically, removing the various (and sometimes download-heavy) widgets and tools. In Eurostar’s case it simply posted a message at the top of the site, indicating what services were running, or not.

The long-term impact of the weekend’s shenanigans is debatable. Eurostar has a monopoly on the service between the three city centres and is, except in recent circumstances, generally well-liked by passengers.

NB: Experian Hitwise UK data below shows the top 20 search terms relating “eurostar” for the week ending Saturday 19 December 2009.