The deal with Orbitz Worldwide-owned Ebookers will see SilverRail’s Silvercore integrated across 12 country sites in Europe, giving the agency its first foray into rail search and ticketing for multiple train operators on the continent.

Although Ebookers and Orbitz are now on a unified technology platform, Orbitz has not been included in the partnership.

As well as giving users the ability to book rail-only fares, Ebookers will be packaging tickets with hotels also available on the system.

SilverRail is hoping the deal will trigger a wave of interest around online travel agencies to start focusing on rail product, especially in Europe where high-speed train travel is seeing heavy investment by a string of countries including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

The company, which was on the receiving end of a $5 million investment round in April this year, signed another significant deal a few months ago when Sabre picked it to power the rail search and booking provision on the GetThere platform.

The SilverCore platform enables users to search for and book rail for journeys involving a number of countries and train operators in a single transaction.

The technology also means travel agents and travel management companies, both on and offline, will be able to offer a more integrated rail booking solution.

The platform now offers rail connections from the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as well as the US and Canada and the plan is to add more European rail operators in the coming months.

SilverRail signed a deal to integrate the platform with Dolphin Dynamics’ reservation system in February enabling users to compare train options alongside GDS flights and low-cost carriers as well as package up rail with hotels and car-hire.

The company also has a partnership to integrate the platform with Sabre’s GetThere travel and expense tool.

SilverRail revealed additional funding of $5 million in April, which came on top of the $9.6m it had announced at launch.

The company also launched a consumer-facing brand, Quno, just over year ago.

The British Airports Authority describes the pods as the first new example of transit technology in 100 years.

The 21 battery-powered pods were developed by UK company Ultra PRT and BAA based on a project started by Bristol University.

They cost £30 million to develop, have been in testing since April and have already carried 10o,ooo passengers.

BAA estimates they will carry 500,000 passengers between terminal 5 and the business car park each year.

A few green facts about the pods:

• Run on low-energy batteries
• Have zero emissions
• Will eliminate 50,000 bus journeys each year

Pods can carry four passengers with luggage and will be situated at stations according to demand.

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.

Since the beginning of time in the travel industry, there has been a need for content aggregators of some description.

It has never made any sense for your Mom and Pop travel agent on Main Street (or the High Street depending on where you are reading this) to have relationships with every airline, every hotel chain and every rental car agency in the world in order to fulfill the needs of their customers.

And hence, the original Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) were born (this is ignoring the fact that originally GDSs were just automated booking systems for individual airlines – such as Sabre and American Airlines - but we’ll gloss over that for now.)

A brief history of the GDS

In the emerging era of the GDSs (late ’70s to early ’80s), they served an enormously useful function of allowing travel agents to connect to multiple travel providers (by this time starting to include hotels and rental cars) in a single system, minimizing the need for development to multiple systems for the sellers.

It also therefore provided a great service to the suppliers: because the GDSs were connected to a huge number of travel sellers, the suppliers could reach a broader audience than they could with direct connections themselves.

By the late 1980s, the GDSs were starting to realize that they held an enormous position of power, providing a great deal of value both to the suppliers and the distributors, and since then have imposed a number of incremental price increases on fees in both directions, which, I guess unsurprisingly, has unsettled some of the players in the chain.

What is driving the likes of American Airlines away from the GDS?

As a result of this behavior, you are starting to see the “revolt”, ironically starting in particular by American Airlines pulling out of the content aggregation portals and demanding direct connections to their system.

It is worth pointing out, however, that this is driven by three key points:

• The increase in fees from the GDSs (as mentioned above)
• The massive advance in technological capabilities of both travel agents and airlines, making a direct connection to the airline actually feasible, which was not the case 30 years ago; and perhaps most importantly,
• The significant concentration of the travel-sellers market in the last few years, concentrating consumer demand through a few key portals, and the decline of the Mom and Pop travel agent as a means to book travel on a regular basis (as exemplified in corporate travel by the growth of the mega-travel management companies (TMCs), but also on the leisure side with the likes of the mega-OTAs such as Expedia and Orbitz etc)  This can be seen in Travel Weekly’s PowerList where the top 3 agencies make up over 50% of the top 20 in the US, and the largest (Expedia) is 43x larger than number 20 (Ovation Travel)

How does this relate to rail

The rail industry, in terms of ticket distribution, is roughly comparable to the state of the air industry in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Connecting to rail lines tends to be very technologically challenging, and the standards that have developed in the air market (ticketing standards, timetable standards, airport / station codes, standards on fares) do not exist in rail at all.

Not only that, but there is the added complexity of traveling by rail, in that there are 1000x more train stations in the world than there are airports, which therefore creates the exponentially more complex combination of routes.

On some trains in Canada on Via Rail, for example, you can request a stop at any point between two stations and there are 67 scheduled stops on the direct train between Toronto and Vancouver (taking three days)!

Therefore the need for content aggregation, journey planning, standardization of ticketing, station codes etc, are all critical to the success of major travel sellers like the TMCs and OTAs to be able to sell rail in an efficient manner.

The future of the GDS

The concept of content aggregation is always going to be a powerful one, with new technological solutions constantly emerging (for example, Farelogix in air, and GDSx in middleware).

Firms are also finding ways to make the data available through these aggregation systems more useful and practical to their customers (the obvious example being ITA Software taking GDS data and making it useful for agents).

And new industries will continue to be covered (for example, CarTrawler in rental cars).

As long as the aggregators are providing value to their partners (both suppliers and distributors), and not taking advantage of their position in the chain, a role will always continue to be played in this space, even if the exact form does not remain constant.

NB: This is a guest article by James Harland, VP of operations at SilverRail Technologies.

SilverRail will provide global rail content from the likes of the UK rail operators, SNCF in France, German DB, Canadian and US rail, as well as Eurostar services between the UK and continental Europe.

GetThere users will get access – via SilverRail SilverCore platform – to inventory, prices and schedules from all rail operators in the system, plus the ability to book tickets.

Perhaps most importantly will be the integration into the existing GetThere platform, so users can search, view, compare and book air and rail tickets in a single display.

SilverRail uses electronic tickets and also provides users with options to modify and cancel rail bookings through the system.

GetThere subscribers are said to be spending nearly $9 billion per year on travel.

It is probably in Europe, where rail travel is going through a revolution of sorts with the launch of new high-speed lines linking many of the major cities, where GetThere’s alliance with SilverRail will probably have the most impact.

The other named principals named in the US SEC filing yesterday include SilverRail founder and CEO Aaron Gowell, company director Cheryl Rosner, Jeffrey Cooper, Charles Lax (Grand Banks Capital) and James White (Sutter Hill Ventures).

The latest injection of a $5 million equity offering follows an initial investment warchest of $9.6 million at launch [TLabs Showcase - SilverRail Technologies].

The company has set itself the daunting mission of organising global rail search and booking into a single system, a project concentrated at the moment on the major opportunity for rail unravelling in Europe as well as East Coast US high speed commuter routes.

It also has created a consumer-facing online travel agency in the shape of Quno.

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.

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 deal means the SilverRail engine will be integrated into the existing Dolphin software used by tour operators and travel agencies, allowing them to search and book train journeys including UK domestic, international and other providers such as Amtrak.

Central to the partnership will be the ability for customers to compare train times alongside flights available from the GDSs and low cost carriers connected already on the system.

Passengers will also be able to package rail tickets together with hotels and car rental services.

SilverRail has targeted Europe as its major growth area as the high-speed and other international services across the continent are deregulated and train operators expand their services.

The company (which also operates the Quno consumer-facing rail online travel agency), alongside GDS provider Amadeus, have recognised the huge potential of rail to challenge the dominance of low cost carriers and other airlines in providing city-to-city trips across Europe.

NB: Dolphin Dynamics will be exhibiting at Travel Technology Europe this week. Full guide here.

NB2: TLabs Showcase – SilverRail Technologies.

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

Ticketmunky is the UK’s first independent rail season ticket agent. Our service is aimed at commuters and we sell season tickets covering every rail operator including TFL’s Oyster.

We’ve created a number of value added benefits to help make commuting more rewarding under what we’re calling “The Commuter Revolution”.

The business is part of Munky Business Group, headed by Matt Wigginton who has almost 20 years travel industry and business experience.

We have a small but dedicated team who are all committed to the cause.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

Our business is self-funded by existing directors.

What problem are you trying to solve?

We have a single aim – to make commuting more rewarding. We do this by adding value to our services and creating new, innovative products and services that help commuters by making things more accessible, easier to use and more fun!

Describe the business, core products and services?

Ticketmunky is a business built around its customers. We focus on what is important to them.

It would be very easy for us to simply sell rail tickets but there’s nothing new or innovative in that.

We take things a step further by offering value added benefits. Every Ticketmunky customer receives £1,500 worth of ticket insurance to cover loss/theft and £10,000 worth of personal injury insurance absolutely free.

We have created a unique, easy-to-use SMS Delay Claims service which allows our customers to claim compensation for delays and cancellations by simply sending a single SMS rather than completing lengthy forms.

We offer a unique reward scheme giving Ticketmunky customers 5% of the cost of their season ticket back in travel vouchers to spend on their annual holiday.

We offer season ticket loans to people who don’t get them from their employer so they don’t have to tie up their credit card balance for a whole year.  This helps them save money and spread the cost of their commute.

We’ll continue to develop new products and solutions to everyday problems to help our customers enjoy a more rewarding commute.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

Ticketmunky’s key customers are everyday commuters and small business owners who require tickets for themselves or their employees.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

Absolutely. We wouldn’t be very focused on our customers if we didn’t speak to them about what we were doing to make sure we got it right!

We canvassed hundreds of commuters to find out what they thought was missing from their commuting experience.

We spoke to suppliers and partners, bankers and insurers, potential investors in fact anyone who would listen to ensure we had a good sounding board.

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

We earn marginal commission from the sale of rail tickets but, like our customers, we see every day as part of a larger journey.

Our revenue comes from providing value added services and working to develop a wider range of relevant products and services for our customers.

We are also working with other partners, outside of the rail industry, to extend our service to other areas of the commute.

This allows us to utilise the same software, systems and procedures to expand in to new areas with very little additional cost.  Revenue streams from other areas are significantly higher than rail ticketing.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• Access to rail season tickets from every rail operator including TFL Oyster
• Easy-to-use booking system
• Value added products and services
• Innovative, entrepreneurial approach
• Exclusive arrangements with key suppliers

Weaknesses:

• Marginal commission from rail tickets

Opportunities:

• Expansion of product portfolio outside of rail ticketing
• Lucrative audience
• Overseas expansion

Threats:

• Changes to the rail franchising system/method
• Changes to season ticket scheme/function

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

Without wishing to inflate our egos, I can safely say that we’ve had widely supportive responses from everyone we’ve spoken to and no-one has failed to see the benefit of Ticketmunky’s entry to the market.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

This business relies on volume and we’re looking for a low single digit percentage share of the rail season ticket business… and a foothold in some new markets, too.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.