Eurostar launched a “social media platform” a few weeks ago as part of a wider campaign called Explore Europe, aimed at showing off other destinations around the continent.

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.

New rail travel technology provider SilverRail has not only come out of stealth mode today but is also throwing its consumer-facing train booking site open for testing.

Quno is the B2C version of the SilverRail system which has been under development for the past ten months after securing $9 million of Series A funding from Sutter Hill Ventures, Grandbanks Capital, PAR Capital and Brook Ventures.

Headed by ex-Trainline business development director, Jeremy Acklam, Quno reckons it is taking the idea of a single place to purchase European rail tickets to the next level.

Quno is starting with UK services and has aspirations to conquer Europe and elsewhere (including the US) in the coming months.

Until now many of the main rail search sites have redirected users to the train operator’s own website, but Quno claims it will be a leading OTA for rail travel after securing agreements with the all suppliers and coordinating ticketing through the UK’s Association of Train Operating Companies.

SilverRail founder and CEO Aaron Gowell claims the notoriously difficult UK rail structure was “not much of an issue” once dialogue began with ATOC and other suppliers.

The Quno site itself gives a respectful nod toward the existing user experience found on metasearch websites, allowing users to filter results using slide bars and the use of pop-out boxes containing maps and other important information.

The site is currently in private beta but the curious can request an invite code from the current homepage of the site.

Despite Quno’s claims of a revolution in rail ticketing, the launch comes just a few weeks after the launch of a similar rail site known as RedSpottedHanky, created by ATOS Origin, a global technology company unfortunately better known for issues around data protection via its outsourced work from the UK government.

TLabs Showcase focus on startups featuring UK-based rail booking technology provider SilverRail.

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

Transfixed by the matrix of travel and technology, the SilverRail leadership team comprises top travel ecommerce experts whose history goes back to the founding days of online travel.

• Aaron Gowell, company founder and CEO – Prior to founding SilverRail in 2009, Aaron built one of the largest travel technology and distribution companies in the US: National Leisure Group (NLG), a $1 billion ecommerce leader in vacations and cruise. NLG pioneered several early online travel technologies including the cruise industry’s first online booking platform and one of the first dynamic packaging systems. Previously, Aaron honed his survival skills in US Army’s 82nd Airborne and at global management consultancy Bain & Company. Aaron was also a founding member of General Catalyst Partners, a leading venture capital firm in Boston where he was most recently an entrepreneur-in-residence.
• Will Phillipson, company founder and EVP product strategy - With a decade-plus of travel technology and product development experience, Will helped build NLG’s dynamic packaging technology/product. Nearly anyone using web-based travel products today has seen Will’s genius. In fact, NLG’s revolutionary dynamic packaging solution powers 20 brands – like Orbitz.com – and integrates global distribution for more than 2,000 suppliers. Among many successful companies, Will had also taken the reins as the VP product strategy and technical lead at ITA Software.
• Jeremy Acklam, general manager, Quno.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

$9 million in series-A capital from a group of top-tier investment firms including Sutter Hill Ventures, Grandbanks Capital, PAR Capital, Brook Ventures. The syndicate was pulled together by Aaron Gowell.

What problem are you trying to solve?

Developed by a team of highly experienced travel ecommerce experts obsessed with improving online travel planning, SilverRail Technologies has built the first global rail platform.

A global explosion in high-speed rail, awareness of the environmental impact of travel, hassles associated with air travel, and industry deregulation have coalesced into a perfect storm, making passenger rail the travel industry’s most dynamic and fastest-growing sector.

We consolidate passenger rail products from across the globe into an integrated single-source platform that removes the complexity of selling rail anywhere in the world.

Describe the business, core products and services?

For railways:

SilverRail works with railways as a technology partner and provides access to any travel seller through a single connection. Harnessing the SilverRail Integrated Technology Platform, railways do not have to invest their own time and money to implement, manage or support multiple customer connections.

Meanwhile, Railways benefit from access to new markets and distribution technologies – while maintaining complete control of their product.

Distribution channels include:

• Travel management companies
• Online and traditional travel agencies
• Tour operators
• Travel technology companies

For travel sellers:

SilverRail makes selling Rail easy! By aggregating numerous rail suppliers into a single, flexible platform, SilverRail Technologies provides travel sellers a complete rail solution that fits their business needs.

The complexity and intricacies of each carrier system – different APIs, different business rules, and different business models – are abstracted and normalized into a single common interface, offering complete product access in a familiar – similar to air ticketing – business process.

Travel sellers may choose to access the rail product via either of two technologies offered by SilverRail:

• Web service – Air-like interface, standardized queries and responses and end-to-end functionality across global rail content.
• White label – Customized websites and widgets available for immediate website plug-in, leveraging the SilverRail Web Service.

In both cases, travel sellers may use direct commercial relationships with the railway suppliers or capitalize on blanket agreements for content forged by SilverRail. At all times, the supplier and distributor are transparent, powered by SilverRail technology.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

We have several, but in most cases we are under NDA not to disclose the partnership, given that we supply a core product/capability.

• B2B: Can’t say – under NDA. Five large travel distributors signed or live (three signed, live this fall, two already live)
• B2C: Our own consumer direct rail retail brand, Quno (primarily UK).

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

Yes. We had one client in beta.

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

Business model is most closely described as a GDS. We consolidate rail content via direct connections to suppliers, we aggregate and homogenise the data into a unified format/structure, and we distribute the aggregated content via a single API (or white label GUI).

The revenue model varies. The suppliers pay either a technology fee per transaction or a % commission. Distributors then pay for access to the content and pay per query or per booking.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• Our product platform, which is the first rail platform in the space. Connections are easy to do. Building world-class products is very difficult, which makes the business defensible.

Weaknesses:

• Time and adoption. Rail is new to many/most distributors and we expect adoption to take time.

Opportunities:

• OTAs. No OTA has ever integrated rail into air search or hotel packaging. SRT’s API enables both.

Threats:

• GDSs. They’re smart and have deep pockets and should have done this themselves.

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

Can’t name names – it’ll burn bridges. What I can say is that I didn’t listen because the macro-dynamic trends were singing to me: huge, growing market, incredible innovation leaps (200mph high speed trains), the largest investment – ever – in travel (high speed rail infrastructure), plus deregulation.

It’s the perfect investment storm!  Besides, no one’s ever tried to do this and being a pioneer is an adventure.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

Profitability by end of Q1 2011.  Then my shoulders will unbunch.

TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.

Update: Eurostar appears not to have learnt completely from its communication problems of the recent months.

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.

Web design agency Fortune Cookie has unveiled the long-awaited overhaul of the UK’s leading train planning website NationalRail with a user experience and tools normally found on overseas leisure sites.

The site is the fourth highest trafficked website in the UK, not surprising given the wide use of rail for commuting and leisure travel, and in turn it captures much of the juice for some of the most searched for keywords in the country (”national rail”, “train times”).

Fortune Cookie has completely redesigned the user interface and introduced a range of functionality including trip planning tools in a project which has taken less than eight months.

This is a “major achievement”, according to Cookie managing director Justin Cooke, as the site incorporates search and booking feeds into every individual rail operator in the UK as well needing some serious loadtesting due to its traffic levels, currently running at around 12 million unique users a month.

The new site has moved from its original and rather tired-looking navigation in favour of a new system where users can move between different elements in the service, such as search, ticketing, alerts and live train information.

The live chat system, Ask Lisa, which Cookie created before getting involved with the wider redesign brief, remains in the new version of the site.

Cooke says the project is the biggest the agency has undertaken in its history, eclipsing its other high profile work in the travel sector for tour operating firm Kuoni.

The site is the consumer facing information division – known as National Rail Enquiries – of the Association of Train Operating Companies, a UK-focused body representing the various rail firms across the UK.

National Rail Enquiries launched an iPhone app earlier this year.