Coach trips in Britain have a bit of a crusty reputation, with poorly equipped vehicles offering slow, if rather cheap, progress to ones destination. Things don’t have to be thus however, and a number of newer entrants into the market are changing things.
For instance, I recently enjoyed a journey via Student Agency, who provide passengers with a range of movies, music, books and newspapers to wile away the time, together with free wi-fi and refreshments on your journey. As the name suggests, the service is popular with the young, but also increasingly with commuters looking to do some work on their way to the office.
Disrupting train transport
The German rail startup Locomore are attempting to provide similar disruption to the rail industry. It can feel at times as though the rail industry has remained largely stagnant, and whilst the speed of services has broadly increased, the service itself has remained unchanged for decades.
Locomore aim to change that by offering passengers a number of new services that are tailored towards specific user groups. For instance, the trains come with free Wifi (that actually works), a number of power outlets in each carriage, and tables for people to work on.
Passengers can choose from a number of different ‘themed’ carriages depending on their needs, so if you want to conduct business meetings or do some work, there’s a carriage for you. If you want some peace and quiet, likewise. There are even carriages around personal interests such as football.
The service also aims to be environmentally friendly, with green power used from Naturstrom AG, and sustainable food offered to passengers.
The company began services in the back end of 2016 on the long distance services between Berlin-Hannover-Frankfurt and Stuttgart.
The venture was backed by a successful crowdfunding campaign on German platform StarNext, so there are clearly enough frustrated passengers willing to put their money where their mouth is.
It will be interesting to see if similar models could work in other countries.
