When students imagine “their” passenger information

On Wednesday 26 October, secondary school students were invited to rethink the way CFL provides information on their school journeys. This informal discussion helped to identify the expectations of this loyal but demanding public.

Although the high school students who use CFL train lines on a daily basis are familiar with innovative features on digital platforms, they remain attached to a certain pragmatism with regard to the use of public transport: having the right information at the right time to arrive at school on time.

This fundamental expectation was expressed on Wednesday 26 October during the workshop organised at the CFL Conference Centre as part of the “Digital Challenge”, coordinated at national level by the IMS Luxembourg network and the NGO Care Luxembourg. The aim of this operation was to allow interested young people to discover, on a voluntary basis, the professional world during a day of immersion in a company.

“We asked our 14 participants to put themselves in the shoes of a newly arrived CFL employee whose first task was to determine the strategy for transmitting students the information they needed in order to reach their destination by train”, summarises Sophie Lacour, Head of the CFL Quality Department.

Students from three schools (Nic Biever in Dudelange, Mathias Adam in Pétange and Lycée de Garçons in Luxembourg-City) agreed to take on this role to devise new information channels or even improve existing ones. “We asked them to develop solutions that would reach as many students as possible”, adds Sophie Lacour.

Based on active listening, the CFL wanted to take advantage of students’ experiences to get a better understanding of the information they need to travel better every day.

A demand for personalisation

At the end of the brainstorming sessions led by representatives of the CFL Quality Department and a representative of a company accompanying CFL in the continuous improvement of its passenger information strategy, the three groups formed for the occasion unveiled their proposals to the jury composed of CFL staff.

Transparency on delays, visibility on the availability of seats, SMS in case of disruption, improvement of the visibility of the signage on the platforms, Wifi on board… the ideas came up throughout the day and comforted the CFL in their previous choices of projects that cover a lot of the expressed ideas and solution propositions made on that day.

After deliberation, the jury awarded the winner’s prize to the students of “Group 1” for having imagined an application which, in addition to trains, would provide information on school buses. This app would also become a communication channel for students and school staff to exchange information and other documents in case of delays.

Talking to our customers

Essential to support young people in their use of public transport, CFL’s passenger information is constantly evolving and is inspired by customer feedback, as was the case during the Digital Challenge.

“The digital world is constantly evolving, and we have to adapt to these changes and develop resources that meet the needs of our passengers”, summarises Sophie Lacour.

Passenger information is reported using various digital tools within the CFL and satisfaction surveys are also carried out regularly among customers. This Wednesday’s action completes this process and will contribute to the reflections currently being carried out by the CFL to define their digital orientation in terms of passenger information.

The future will tell whether some of the participants will join the CFL after their studies… to eventually become one of the cogs in the passenger information wheel.