How to use displays to support passengers to find a seat in the train when it is busy

Summary

Railway travel is booming in the Netherlands: we transport more and more passengers each year and trains are very full especially during peak hours.

Measures are needed to regulate the flow of passengers and try to spread our passengers not only within the train but also over trains. This will also help the punctuality of our trains, very much needed on the tracks where we run trains every 10 minutes in the same direction.

Our station displays are going to be part of a “proof of concept” to support that trains will depart on time. We will develop a new design for our station displays for this. I want to share the first designs that have been made and hear your suggestions.

We also want to inform passengers about the position of the train relating to the platform (DB already does this) so they have more chance to find a seat. We already show this in our app but want to develop this for our station displays too. For international trains we have separate displays but for domestic trains we do not show this information on our station displays yet.

• showing how many minutes till departure time
• showing “no more boarding” when departure time has arrived
• showing next train to same destination after departure time
• train manager in control of departure time shown on displays
• issues: what information is more important, display is small so we have to make choices
• showing train length and train facilities
• showing how busy the train is and where in the train passengers may still find a seat.

Sjanie Quist

1 hour

• I will give a short introduction of our plans and then want to get feedback from others so we can improve the concept and hear how other participants handle these issues. I have questions and maybe other participants have questions too!