High speed rail at Innotrans 2010
Out of all the wonderful stands that were on show at Innotrans, and bravo to everyone, because it was an amazing spectacle, the show outside was the best. Placed around the Innotrans "Bahn" were a number of wonderful looking high speed trains that looked larger than life close up. The tilting train "danced" in front of spectators and people got their photograph taken in front of these machines as if there was a formula one car on show. Bombardier's message "the fastest way to save the planet" was quite a statement, but if you view the CO2 emmissions from a time delay video from http://vimeo.com/11205494 "airspace rebooted" then you will see that they may not be all that far wrong.
Technology has a great role to play in this too, as there was a real focus on improving the station experience - faster boarding, check-in, kiosk, station management and through ticketing. Many new devices were on show to make the boarding and check-in process a la airline, increasing the awareness of e-ticket.
On our stand we were able to show a new mobile application that can run through schedules and eventually book a mobile ticket, then you are free to board the train. The high speed trains really were impressive, but lets get high speed booking and boarding next on the agenda.
