Choo-choo train....

I have blogged on the topic of wifi on trains at the start of this year (here, here and here). The posts centered about the lack of wifi on Irish Trains and the apparent unwillingness by Irish Rail to even consider offering this service. All this culminated in a discussion between Barry Kenny (Irish Rail spokesman) and myself on the “Last Word” show on TodayFM. During this discussion I made the offer to Irish Rail to install a wifi service on their trains at no expense to Irish Rail. Even though he clearly wasn’t happy with my offer Mr.Kenny agreed to meet with me in order to discuss this.

Due to a strike by Irish Rail staff the actual broadcasting of this discussion was delayed by several weeks and I decided not to chase Irish Rail up in regards to this offer unless I didn't hear from them after the broadcast. The broadcast came and went without a word from Irish Rail. It took several emails and calls from my side and eventually a press release before I received a reply from them. The matter was passed on to Paul O’Kelly their “Corporate & e-marketing” manager. I contacted Mr. O’Kelly to arrange a meeting during which we could discuss our offer and their requirements/parameters for such a service. After a few weeks of emails to-and-fro I was told that they were not willing to meet me unless I submitted a complete proposal for a wifi service. I replied by outlining that we were offering them to take a 3 million+ cost of their hands and that it was ridiculous to expect us to submit a complete proposal without actual having met and discussed their parameters for such a service. Obviously there would be requirements specific to Irish Rail that would needed to be met so preparing such a proposal without this information would be non-sensical and would doom the project to failure before it even started...

Irish Rail obviously saw the logic in this and forwarded technical information and requirements allowing us to start work on a proposal. I also arranged a meeting with Mr.O’Kelly to discuss our proposal further. During the meeting we discussed the deployment & benefits of a train-wide wifi network and the structure under which we could offer this to Irish Rail. Even though there were no costs involved in our proposal for Irish Rail he kept insisting that the provision of this service would have to be out out to tender. After some more prodding I was told that there was also another possibility whereby we would pay Irish Rail for the right to provide the service (i.e. similar to arrangements that they have with vending machine owners etc.) through this construction we could (legally) avoid the tender process. We agreed that I would consider both options and would contact him over the next few weeks to make clear which option we would prefer to take and also to receive further information needed to prepare full technical project specifications.

After we had considered the two options and explored the pros and cons of both I emailed Mr. O'Kelly some weeks later to let him know that we preferred the option whereby we would pay Irish Rail a fee in order to be allowed to provide a wifi service on their trains. I also included a list of questions. His reply took weeks to arrive (via email). I was informed that after internal decision they had made the decision that the provision of wifi services would be put out to tender and that they were preparing the tender document.
A bit of a disappointment but I asked him to please keep me up to date on the tender process. Weeks later I had still not received a reply or an update so I emailed him again. No reply...
Last week, weeks later again, I sent him another email politely asking for an update. As expected I also still have to receive a reply to that email.
As none of my emails have bounced back I assume that he has received them.

It is becoming clear to me that in spite of being offered the service at NO COST Irish Rail is still not interested and hopes that I will just go away if they ignore me often and long enough. Fact is that this won't happen! There is a need for this service along with a clear benefit for Irish Rail (increased ticket sales, more satisfied customers, improved internal & external communication). I still have to come across someone who does not see the benefit in the provision of this service. The fact that a state-owned body (i.e. paid for by the tax-payer) willfully ignores the need for this service even when they would not incur any capital expenses in providing this is un-acceptable. Taking weeks to reply to an email or not replying at all indicates a lack of respect and is unprofessional to say the least...

Midnight train to nowhere....

It's been over two months now since I offered Irish Rail on national radio to install a public wifi service on all their trains at no cost to them. I made the offer during a conversation with Barry Kenny, Irish Rails' official spokesperson. I had to "push" him a little but he agreed to arrange a meeting to discuss my proposal. So far nothing has happened, nix, nada, zip....
The discussion was not broadcast until two weeks later due to Irish Rail being hit by a strike. Even though I heard nothing from them I decided to wait until after the broadcast before I contacted them. This just to make sure that they had the opportunity to discuss it internally and to contact me.
When I hadn't heard anything from them days after the broadcast and subsequent media exposure I decided to call Barry Kenny. He was amicable enough and promised to look into this and to talk to the people concerned. This led to me being contacted by Paul Kelly, Irish Rails' Corporate & eMarketing executive. He asked me to submit an outline of the proposal by email which I promptly did. It was also suggested that we should meet and I asked if we could meet in our Birr office. If both parties agreed to proceed with this we could have the next meeting in their Dublin office and vice versa. I did note at this stage that his emails were full off quotes such as "you should note we have had similar discussions with a number of suppliers previously dating back a number of years." and comments reminding me that a project like this would have to be put out to public tender. The latter is not true (as far as I am aware) as there are no costs to Irish Rail involved. Anyway, they seem to already be looking for reasons not to proceed with this.
I replied to their email outlining that the first meeting was simply to discuss both parties needs & requirements as well as the parameters for the project. Based on this we would decide if the project was viable and if so AirAppz would proceed with preparing a detailed proposal.
That was on June 20th...

When I had not received a reply by last week I emailed both Paul Kelly & Barry Kenny asking for an update. The response that I received was stunning.
I was told that they suspected that we had no detailed proposal. Well obviously, we have a workable solution, but we both parties need to meet to discuss and agree the parameters before we can even start working on a proposal. To prepare a proposal without any discussion with Irish Rail would just be sheer stupidity on our behalf and would condemn the project to failure from the start.
I was also told that they were: "not interested in exploratory talks unless you have a concrete technical proposal". Now I might be really thick here but how are we supposed to prepare a "concrete technical proposal" that has any chance of being accepted if we haven't even had "exploratory talks"?
Paul Kelly also made clear that any proposal "should be in line with our safety and operating environment". I understand this, but how about providing us with the details of this "safety and operating environment" so that we can make sure that our proposal falls within these guidelines?

This is just unbelievable; we make an offer that will increase Irish Rails' level of service, increase their revenue, increase the productivity of rail travellers etc. etc. All at no costs to Irish Rail. And what do they do? They dig up every excuse in the book NOT to proceed with this.
In the meantime rollouts of wifi services on public transport continues all over the planet.

I sent a reply last Thursday but have not heard from them since.
To be continued...

More about wifi on Irish rail..

I blogged about getting WiFi on Irish trains some time ago.
Since this blogpost it has become clear to me how much this type of service is in demand. I have spoken or been approached by several dozen people who agreed with the sentiment expressed in the blogpost. These people ranged from entrepreneurs and students to civil servants. All these people had one thing the in common: they were all willing to either pay more for a ticket or to use the train service more if WiFi internet access was available.
I was also approached by John Kennedy from Silicon republic who wrote on the subject.
Subsequently I was approached last Wednesday (May 21st) By Radio station Today FM who wanted to record a discussion between Barry Kelly (spokesperson for Irish rail) and myself for their "The Last Word" show.
I am not going to summarize the discussion as it has not yet been broadcast but what I can "reveal" is that Barry Kelly indicated that Irish Rails' main reason for not having WiFi on trains yet was that there was significant price-tag attached to this and that they had yet to see an proposal that showed a revenue benefit for them. When I then repeated my earlier offering of installing a public WiFi service on all Irish Trains at NO COST to Irish Rail Barry Kelly just repeated his previous statement. I then had to come straight out and ask him, seeing that I had just blown his argument out of the water, if he would at least meet me in order to discuss my proposal. he said he would but I have still not heard anything. I might just give them a call.

On another note; WiFi on trains continues to be a hot topic across the globe.Thalys launched their service around the same time as my previous blogpost.
TrainComms 2008 the world largest conference on Trains and communications is taking place in London on the 11th & 12th of June. WiFi aboard trains is their main theme for the conference.

There is also a good blog on Blog4IT on wifi on trains. Some quotes from the article:
"Major European, US and Asian operators are rapidly following the UK’s lead and introducing on-board, high-speed wireless Internet connections for their passengers."

"As Graham Wilde, CEO of BWCS, put it, “This year there has been an unprecedented number of new services and trials launched. From the West Coast of America, to India and Australia, we are seeing more interest than ever in these on-board WiFi systems.” He went on “train companies are fired up by a heady combination of introducing cost-saving applications for their own operations and adding new, income-generating, entertainment services for their passengers.”

The full article can be read here..

I think that it's time to put more pressure on Irish rail to provide this service. It will lead to increased ticket sales (especially for the premium rate ticket), will most likely also lead to an increased spend per traveler, it opens up a number of new avenues for information dissemination, improves communication etc.
It will also get people to get out of their car and into the train which in turn will lead to less congested roads and lower CO2 emissions.
Combine that with the fact that because of our offer it would not require any investment in infra-structure for Irish Rail and I really cannot see how they can refuse any longer. Can you?

Poll: WiFi on Irish Rail..

Train-Fi.......

There has been an ongoing discussion within the Irish blogger community recently on the subject of public wifi internet access on trains.
There is a growing demand for this type of service and the provision of it will certainly get more bums on train seats and off car seats. This in turn would lead to lower car usage resulting in lower carbon emisions, surely something that the government should support? I for one would be inclined to take the train rather than drive if it meant that I could sit and work while traveling.
Irish Rail doesn't think that this is a viable option and states the following in it's FAQ:

"Iarnród Éireann (IÉ) feels that it wouldn’t be in the public or the
company’s best interest to install the current wireless technologies on
its fleet for customer use due to the limited lifespan of said
technologies. Anything we install now is likely to be completely
redundant within five years.

We feel customers would be better supported by obtaining their own
wireless solutions, such as those provided by the mobile providers (3G
and GPRS/EDGE ). 

IÉ is hoping that near-future new technologies such as WiMax and
other long range wireless tech will make the idea of onboard solutions
redundant.  We will continue to monitor the speed of advance of such
technologies and if we deem that change is not occurring quickly enough
we may reconsider the situation."

Now this is clearly a cop-out. Not installing a service because it "is likely to be completely redundant within five years"? Nonsense, for one the market share of wifi-client devices is still growing year on year. These devices will still be around in five years time and people will still be using them.WiFi is still the most convenient and costs effective solution for mobile internet access and it will stay that way for a good while to come. Also not providing a service because it might need to be replaced by something else in five years time just doesn't make sense. The low cost of providing wifi access in trains puts it on par with such things as keeping the toilets clean. Now surely they will not stop cleaning the toilets just because it might have to be done again tomorrow?
Passing the buck to 3G and GPRS/EDGE services also shows to indicate that no reserach has been done to support this statement. Conor O'Neill recently documented the huge gaps in coverage for these services. Hoping for Wimax to solve the problem is like kneeling down and praying in front of an oncoming tsunami. It might make you feel better but it won't change reality. While Wimax is a very "good technology" it is not as good as the media has repeatedly hyped it up to be and it is still far, far away from becoming a consumer end technology. When Wimax networks would become more common in Ireland it would be a perfect backhaul medium for local WiFi networks in trains.

It is not like this hasn't been done before. Irish Rail clearly has not looked beyond the Irish sea when considering offering public WiFi access. This article in the International Herald Tribune gives a good overview of what has been happening in this field:

"Train operators across Britain and the Continent have been
accelerating the rollout of onboard Wi-Fi systems, allowing travelers
to prepare for meetings, download video clips or catch up on their
e-mail - sometimes while zipping through the countryside at 300
kilometers, or 190 miles, an hour.

While some railway companies see Wi-Fi as a new source of revenue
for themselves or for the technology companies that run the systems for
them, others see it as a service or marketing perk.

"It's a key tool that we use to compete with the airlines," said
John Gelson, spokesman for National Express East Coast, a British train
operator that has one of the largest on-the-go Wi-Fi systems, in 43
trains that ply a 950-kilometer route between London and Inverness,
Scotland, via Edinburgh."

There you go; in one fell statement. People want it, people will use it and it IS possible. Also it will increase the number of people using the train and these are also quite often the people purchasing first-class or premium price tickets. All this will lead to increased revenue for the Rail operator.
5 minutes of research shows that the following public transport operators are offering public WiFi access:

• Isle of Wight Ferries
• Some Stagecoach
  services in Scotland
  
• Certain bus routes in Wales
  
• Scottish
  Citylink routes
  
• Glasgow flyer shuttles
  
• Certian National Express
  routes in the UK
  
• Some trains & buses in Helsinki
  
• GNER
  trains across the UK
• National Express East Coast (UK)
• Deutsche Bahn (Germany)
• Thalys, which runs high-speed trains linking Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne
• SNCF (France)
• Heathrow Express
• Amtrak

All of these operators have successfully deployed public WiFi using a variety of backhaul methods (3G, satellite, wimax etc.).
The user demand is clearly illustrated by these comments on Twitter. People want it and if it's not available they are clearly annoyed. The increased availability of WiFi enabled phones, Internet laptops and small notebooks as well as the ever growing share of user generated Internet content only supports the argument.
Pratically it is no great feat to install WiFi networks on trains. The main issue is the backhaul connectivity and even for that there are a number of solutions. A combination of these through redundancy combined with content caching should overcome all but the most obscure of problems. Signal propagation within the train is also no big issue even in spite of the large amounts of metal surfaces causing interference. This can be overcome by a properly carried out site survey, a sufficient number of WiFi AP's/hotspots and proper radio-planning.

Another issue to consider is that this WiFi network, through the use of a captive portal solution, can be used for more than providing "plain vanilla" Internet access. The portal can be used to provide public service information, updates on travel times and delays, connecting trains (and other modes of public transport) destinations etc. It can also be used to offer VOIP services and as a means of communication for Irish Rail staff.

All this does not have to come at a huge cost to Irish Rail; I have stated before that (pending certain conditions) that AirAppz is offering to install a WiFi service in most, if not all trains throughout Ireland at NO COST to Irish Rail. The ball is in Irish Rails' court now....     

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