Nomad Digital
The Intelligent Journey
- This article first appeared in the Railway-News magazine Issue 3 2021.
Reliable connectivity has become an ‘expected norm’. When people are away from their home or office, being constantly connected is simply expected. Digital technology is all around us, covering all aspects of our everyday lives, and the perception is: ‘why should it stop when we step on to a train?’
Enabling the Connected Vehicle
The connected vehicle combines a shared and secure network infrastructure to which all authorised onboard systems and passenger devices may connect and interact. The Internet of Things is a driving force behind new innovative technology. The idea of onboard devices communicating with each other and with the outside world while maintaining a seamless passenger experience is key. By adopting industry standards, operators can be assured of a functionally rich, future-proof platform to deploy new applications and services for their passengers while collecting and exchanging data, allowing everyone to be more connected than ever before.
The Vision Remains Relevant Today
Now, the opportunity is not just to connect the passengers but also the operators, maintainers, and onboard staff. Connecting to a wider base of stakeholders plays a valuable role in enriching the passenger experience by responding to market needs and solving connectivity challenges. Passengers are crucial to the operating companies, yet vehicle guards, drivers, conductors, caterers, and maintainers all enhance the passenger experience too. Bringing together passenger connectivity, information and entertainment will transform a passengers’ experience.
A Real-Time End-to-End Solution
New onboard infotainment and rail entertainment solutions can greatly enhance the passenger experience by integrating realtime journey information and media entertainment, on a single platform, for a new experience in passenger information delivery. Providing rail operators with a realtime end-to-end solution – which integrates numerous onboard systems – is an ever-increasing priority. This enables operators to perform real-time analysis onboard, automatically issue alerts of impending equipment failures and feed the relevant information in real-time to their passengers. Keeping passengers informed with the latest journey information is still considered one of the top three biggest challenges facing operators. It also remains high in passenger complaints when things go wrong.
