Operators are introducing ways to get all the real-time travel information you need… via QR codes. Paul Clifton investigates.

In this article:

Operators are introducing ways to get all the real-time travel information you need… via QR codes. Paul Clifton investigates.

In this article:

  • Whoosh provides real-time travel information via QR codes on trains and at stations, improving accessibility and journey planning.
  • The platform aggregates multiple data sources, offering personalized updates on delays, connections, station facilities, and accessibility features.
  • Adoption is growing, with LNER, SWR, and Network Rail integrating Whoosh to enhance passenger experience and operational efficiency.

Imagine having all the travel information you need right in front of you - all the time.

Is your train on time? On what platform will it arrive, and from which side of the train will you get out? If your mobility is limited, will it be accessible, and is the lift working? Is the toilet open?

And how about a map, to help you find your way from the platform to the correct bus stop, as well as knowing in real time how long you have to catch that bus and where to pick up a decent coffee on the way?

If you’re reading this on a delayed CrossCountry service with hours still to go, or standing on a worn-out Northern train straining to hear an announcement from the guard, this will sound like a fantasy.

But on LNER, on Grand Central, on some South Western Railway services, and at most of Network Rail’s major stations, this sort of information is now reality.

If you use those services, you’ve probably seen the stickers bearing QR codes that have appeared on seat backs, on information screens, and even in station toilets.

“You have all the information in one place,” says Whoosh founder and CEO Edmund Caldecott, a former BBC and Sky journalist. “

We are building a national accessibility framework.”

Availability of information has the potential to change travel choices. If you know the bus outside the station is on time, you’re more likely to use it. This is integrated transport delivered to your mobile phone.

The potential is huge. But let’s not get carried away - it’s early days still. The QR codes are only on 72 LNER trains, 53 SWR trains, and at a handful of stations.

“Yesterday we had 15,000 users on LNER. That’s about three in ten passengers,” says Caldecott.

Passengers scan the QR code on the seat back. That links their mobile phone to the specific seat in that particular carriage, and the GPS on the phone confirms the position.

Whoosh is an information aggregator. It pulls in data from a range of different real-time sources, distilling it so that users can understand what is happening during a journey.

Caldecott explains: “Passengers on board a train have been given very little information. The experience has been analogue… until now. We personalise it for every single user.”

He heads a London-based team of just 22 people. But their ambition is enormous.

“We offer it in seven different languages, including British Sign Language. And we are about to add Ukrainian,” says Whoosh Managing Director Jack Shields.

“We have a big focus on accessibility. The litmus test is my Pops, who is 74, to see if he can click it with his thumbs.

“The personalisation goes right down to seat level. That includes services where the train splits, so you can tell whether you are in the right carriage.

“If you scan the QR code at Waterloo and you’re going to Weymouth, it will take you to the 1005, which splits at Bournemouth. It shows you both journeys from there.

“Now let’s go to York.”

Shields clicks and navigates around the screen faster than the untrained eye can follow.

“You can see your train is currently between Northallerton and Thirsk. There’s also a problem with a CrossCountry from Edinburgh Waverley that is delayed due to a lorry colliding with a bridge.”

Caldecott chips in: “The information about the reason for the delay is valuable. It helps you make a decision. We intend to add the average delay time for each cause of disruption, so passengers can make choices. If a bridge is damaged, it’s going to be a long wait, so you can take a different train, choose another route, or go to a cafe for lunch.”

Shields picks up: “It aggregates the train ID, the timetable and GPS data, information from Darwin [the industry’s train running data system], and then adds more layers of information from external providers.

“Now we go a step further. We can push messages to each user, such as a link to the Delay Repay page or a voucher code for a taxi if the service is terminating early.

“There’s a banner at the top that all passengers see. That is tailored to the train operator’s needs. It can be anything from marketing or driver recruitment to buying a fare.

“At Waterloo station we layer in more services. There’s the departure board, but also bikes, buses, Tube and river boat services.

“And leisure feeds as well, not just transport. A map of the station, local events, rental schemes, and the BBC weather forecast.”

Much depends on the quality of data that Whoosh can access. Transport for London and Transport for Greater Manchester provide real-time information. So do some bus operators. But it remains patchy, and there is currently no national real-time bus information portal.

“We are trying to build a live data resource that no one else has,” Shields enthuses.

“We can make an instant call-out to the buses feed, pull that information into your train journey, and track where you are. So, instead of a station-to-station journey, we will be able to offer you postcode to postcode, layering in bus or walking information.”

Caldecott adds: “We’ve done live dynamic maps for Network Rail’s large stations. We’ve taken the station assets, such as toilets or lifts, and added those to the feed, so we can tell you whether the toilet on your arrival platform is working. Over the next six months, we are going to do that for 2,500 stations.”

Network Rail has signed a five-year agreement with Whoosh. It covers 17 of its 20 managed stations - only St Pancras and the Scottish stations are absent.

“It’s most effective during disruption,” explains NR Project Manager Michelle Gooch.

“We put the QR code on information screens. That means they’re large and everyone can see them. Passengers scan the code and immediately they know what’s happening.

“That reduces the pressure on platform staff. It also reduces crowding and congestion on the platform, which is especially useful at Euston at the moment.”

Gooch says that the QR code at stations was scanned 36,000 times in the past three months. Half of those were at Euston.

“We’ve also trialled it in retail outlets at Euston. At The Signal Box and Café Nero, we have put the QR codes on the tables, each table having its own separate code. In two months, we’ve had 5,000 scans just at The Signal Box.”

Claire Youdell, programme manager for Network Rail, points out: “Network Rail has never had direct communication with passengers. We have rolled this out with no comms, marketing or media. That’s because we are in the process of finding a name.

“Whoosh is the name of the company, not the product. And we didn’t think Network Rail Customer Information Dashboard was very catchy! So, the number of users is impressive.

“This is so much more than a journey planner. There’s the potential for offers during disruption, such as money off a cup of coffee if you’re delayed.

“Eventually, it could have an interactive map at national level that enables you to zoom in to any location and pick the information you want, right down to individual station map level.”

For the time being, it is not on offer at many other stations, so it’s great for passengers travelling from Euston to York, but no use to someone at Brighton trying to get to Victoria.

“Network Rail can’t fund direct customer information at every station,” points out Malcolm Pitt, who leads on customer experience for NR’s system operator team.

“But there is the potential to do exactly that with just a QR code. It does disadvantage those people who cannot use a mobile phone, but most people have one.”

How will success be measured?

“Just joining up all the disparate systems that passengers have to use,” says Pitt.

“Reducing the demand on staff. At key locations such as Euston, we have Lidar systems that measure in real time how many people are in what locations on the concourse. When these QR codes go up on the main screen, we can track how customers respond and see the quantity of people moving. So, at least at Euston, we can measure the effect.”

It also offers potential benefits for railway staff running the services.

Whoosh MD Shields explains: “On SWR, we have a QR code to scan in the on-board toilets, and the station toilets as well.

“A FirstGroup director went into a loo and found it disgusting. He did not have a convenient way to report this - until now.

“We are introducing a specific poster for a specific toilet, which takes you straight to a form to fill in. If you’re on the train, then it already has the information about which carriage you are in, on which service and where you are at that moment, so you just fill in a name and email.”

Caldecott adds: “The way this is done at the moment is usually on Twitter/X. You tweet that the toilets are disgusting and wait for someone to respond. That dirty laundry is all in public for everyone to see, and it is not contextualised.

“The operators ask you which train you are on. They ask which unit you are on, and most people have no idea where to find that information, so it just creates more heat around the problem. With this, all the information is there already. It takes a moment, and anyone can use it. And not everyone wants to be on Twitter anyway.

“This changes the way the railway is used. Say it’s late at night and you’re on your own. Someone is staring at you. You’re feeling uncomfortable about it. You could use this to tell the guard. The guard could then walk through the train. Currently your only other option is to press the train alarm.

“Or say you’re a member of staff travelling on the train, and you see a faulty door. If the door isn’t fixed, the whole train will have to be taken out of service, at enormous cost and disruption.

“But you could scan the QR code, and it will register you are SWR staff. Your message can be fast-tracked straight to the engineering team, and someone can be sent to fix it.

“And cleaning: train crew can send a contextualised message that there’s sick all over the floor and it needs cleaning now.”

When a passenger complaint is logged using the dashboard, it includes the specific seat number, linked to the GPS data that verifies the person with the phone is on that train. It also logs the weather at the time of the complaint.

“We put that in because air-conditioning in summer on SWR is non-existent when it’s hot,” Shields explains.

Whoosh is logging a million users a month across Network Rail, LNER, Grand Central and SWR. Development is funded by the Department for Transport, via the operators.

The ability to merge a range of different information sources is especially useful for people with accessibility needs.

“Not just wheelchair access or a disabled toilet,” Shields points out.

“How about someone with three kids and two prams on the go? They need level access and working lifts in the station. This becomes a planner platform for everyone.”

Caldecott adds: “We haven’t done step-free access yet. If you look for that at Kentish Town, you have to go to the operator’s website, navigate your way to the accessibility page, where the chances are you will find a PDF that you have to scroll through to find the information you need. It takes ages. And Kentish Town is not step-free, even though National Rail Enquiries says it is.

“Our dashboard will tell you to get off at the station before - Camden Road, which is step-free - and then it will layer in the buses. So, the user can now walk, wheel or get the bus to the exact end point of the journey.

He asserts: “This will change the way people travel. Aggregating information creates new insights. Nothing like this exists in the wider world. The sticker on the seat back is your access point to all the information to plan a journey by accessibility, by time, by points of interest.

“It’s not just A to B - it’s A to Z. Connecting the trains in real time with buses, taxis, trams, scooters and walking across the whole country, adapted to disruption. Integrating transport through information.”

SWR’s experience

“We put it on two trains in 2023,” says SWR Customer Experience Manager Amy Sullivan.

“We now have 53 trains installed and are working towards 91. We get hundreds of interactions every day, and people are clearly spending time in it.”

One of the problems has been passengers picking at the sticky seat-back labels during journeys. Damaged QR codes are not easy to replace, when each one at each seat is different.

“It sounds small, but actually it is a huge amount of work,” says Sullivan.

“We have five stations with it. We chose very different locations, ranging from Wimbledon to Shawford, for a variety of demographics and size. And Portsmouth Harbour, with its onward journeys by ferry.”

SWR is now looking at geo-targeting information - being able to put a message on specific trains, whether by route or by rolling stock type. That could involve service updates or offers and rewards relating to that line.

“The potential is huge,” she says.

“It is probably one solution of many. The real appeal is instant access - no signing up, no logging in. It’s about making it easy for the customer. There are so many different data feeds, so much information out there. This is where we can bring it all together quite quickly.

“It is useful for feedback, too. Rather than taking to Twitter or other social media, passengers can contact us very quickly.

“If there is a fault, such as with a toilet or hand dryer, our engineering and train presentation teams have that data very quickly.

“It has been a progressive rollout, and the response we have been getting is good.”

LNER’s experience

“It’s on all our trains,” says LNER Retail Product Manager Matthew Jarvis.

“We have 30,000 unique stickers across the fleet, so it took some time!

“We get 160,000 hits a month - unique users - and they view around two million pages. It’s our most-used digital platform on the train and whenever there is a delay, we see a big spike in users.”

Only one in three LNER customers book directly. When they use the Whoosh platform, it is often the first direct interaction with the train operator. If Trainline has sold the ticket, Jarvis says it is difficult for the operator to communicate with the passenger before the start of their journey.

“We had an existing product, called Let’s Eat At Your Seat, which allowed customers to order food using a QR code. So, for us to put an information service on there, we needed to combine the two systems and link to our catering suppliers.

“We also wanted it to feel like an LNER platform. Our disruption feed comes from our own system, rather than the industry’s Darwin. We have a ticker across the top, which went live in November, which provides the customer with much more detail about disruption.”

LNER shares bus information for onward journeys, but not yet taxi details. It feels the data can be unreliable.

It is also only offering the service on board the trains, not at any of its stations.

“We have plans to do that,” Jarvis explains.

“But we are still working out how to do it, rather than plastering the station in stickers. We don’t think that is the right way to communicate to customers. We think they need the information earlier, before they set out for the station.”

LNER has 70 staff in its digital team, more than any other train operator. But it intends to work with Whoosh for the long term.

“We are helping Whoosh to hone their product. We are adding infotainment. We’ve just launched a new LNER podcast, which you reach within the portal. We want to add games for younger travellers to play - at the moment they are in a separate app.

“We use it to support our perks programme - you can get cash back on our products and 10% off the on-board catering.

“We tell people about things to do and days out at local attractions.

“This is a business-as-usual tool. It should not be just for managing disruption.”

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