Next stop: a community platform for rail

With industry liberalisation, growing consumer appetite for rail travel , and the now real potential of the European high-speed network to transform long-distance rail travel, it is clear that rail travel is becoming increasingly cross-border – not only in terms of operations, but also in customer base.

Our long-term strategic IT partnership with Amadeus, announced today, will help us to navigate and benefit from this rapidly changing and increasingly complex environment. Adopting a community IT platform will mean we can become more flexible and strengthen our multichannel and multicarrier distribution. We will benefit from next-generation technology, without having to build this ourselves. It will transform the way we do business, because we will be able to focus our energy on delivering the best possible service to our customers, knowing that our systems are in the safe hands of Amadeus.

We’re excited to be the first rail companies in Europe to take this approach. A community IT platform will open up brand new opportunities for rail companies, as it did in the airline industry: we could even see codeshares and partnerships established between rail companies. We hope that the platform will set the standard for rail IT, and that other rail companies will soon join us in this community, so that we can create a truly seamless experience for rail travellers across Europe.