Cisco
A Modern, Safe, Secure and Improved Passenger Experience
This article first appeared in the Railway-News magazine, Issue 2 2023.
As ridership inches towards pre-pandemic levels, rail operators are tasked with evolving their operations and adapting to new transit behaviours to provide the experiences passengers expect.
From Nice-to-Have to Must-Have
The increase in hybrid work has caused foundational shifts in travel patterns and revenue-generation models in rail. Even with the infusion of needed infrastructure funding, it has become critical for rail organisations to ensure the long-term financial viability of their networks. Building a safe and modern passenger experience is essential.
Internet connectivity for passengers used to be a niceto-have. But in today’s hybrid work environment, it has turned into a must-have. As workers travel from home offices to customer visits to the corporate office, the connectivity experience must be reliable – whether jumping on a Webex meeting or catching up on email. Business travellers choose how to move around their city based on when and where they can be connected. Reliable connectivity also enables enhanced passenger features such as interactive kiosks, wayfinding and realtime estimated time of arrival (ETA) communications making the experience seamless and reliable.
Safety concerns must also be considered as operators aim to dynamically address potential incidents to improve overall safety and comfort for travellers.
Safety concerns must also be considered as operators aim to dynamically address potential incidents to improve overall safety and comfort for travellers. Passenger on device 104 Automated video monitoring of train and station surveillance and video incident capture from on-board cameras are a few ways operators are gaining more visibility into the passengers’ environment. These solutions not only make passengers feel more secure during their experience, but also provide transit authorities with improved operational awareness.
