UK Premiere: Loadweigh Information in Real Time

To constantly improve customer service, Arriva Rail London has recently added more innovative features to their HAFAS-based app for station staff.   

With "Orinoco," Arriva Rail London's frontline customer service teams have an essential tool at hand: Equipped with their HAFAS app on iPhones and iPads, the station staff are now even better informed about delays or disturbances on London's rails and can immediately forward this information to the passengers. As of recently, staff members now have real-time access to loadweigh information - Arriva Rail London is the first UK train operator to trial this cutting-edge approach.

The new loadweigh software has been introduced on Arriva Rail London's Class 378 trains. It determines how many passengers are in each carriage, revealing where there is still room to accommodate more. The "Orinoco" app immediately shows the free capacities in the trains and thereby helps the service teams to guide waiting passengers to the carriages that are less busy. This not only improves the customer experience, it also helps trains to leave on time.

In addition to their own real-time information, Arriva Rail London has access to Transport for London's and National Rail's real-time data. Any relevant information regarding potential problems is pushed to the staff's devices via "Orinoco." Thanks to Hacon's rule-based solution, it can be easily specified which types of messages will be sent to which member of staff based on the appropriateness, location and individual relevance to that recipient. In addition to delays, station-specific HAFAS.info messages are also pushed to the app, e.g. if an elevator is out of order.

Stella Rogers, Customer Experience Director at Arriva Rail London: "On a typical weekday, we transport more than 660,000 passengers whose travel experience we intend to make as comfortable as possible. 'Orinoco' provides our service teams with accurate passenger loading data or 'loadweigh' which allows us to direct passengers to less busy carriages and helps ensure that they have a more enjoyable commuting experience. Furthermore, with passengers boarding quieter carriages, we can get trains boarded quicker and further improve on-time performance."

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Whether live departures, interactive live map or train details: With HAFAS, the flow of real-time information from control room to frontline teams to passengers has improved significantly. The train loadweigh is visible in each of the screenshots above.