On 28 October 2026, the UIC Passenger Services Group held its latest Innovation Workshop on the topic “From mass to one-to-one in rail: real-time hyper-personalised information and offers”, at the UIC Headquarters in Paris and online. The event brought together representatives of Trains of Portugal (CP), Luxembourg National Railway Company (CFL), FS Technology, Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), Dutch Railways (NS), Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), French National Railways (SNCF), Slovenian Railways (SŽ), Trenitalia, Railway Company of Slovakia (ZSSK) and UIC.
Bertrand Minary, UIC Passenger Director, opened the workshop by welcoming all participants.
Following a round of introductions, Stefano Scarci from Ernst & Young Global Limited (EY) set the scene with a presentation on hyper-personalisation, addressing four questions:
- Why is hyper-personalisation no longer optional now that passengers expect travel providers to match the experiences offered by digital tools?
- Which technologies enable hyper-personalisation, from digital identity and account-based ticketing to artificial intelligence and real-time rail industry platforms?
- Where can hyper-personalisation have the greatest positive impact across the passenger experience?
- What can the industry achieve by working together?
Francesca Palano (EY) then showed how Voice of Customer (VoC) and personalised marketing work in practice. VoC is the structured, continuous process of collecting customers’ expectations, experiences and perceptions to improve the service. The presentation outlined VoC best practices from leading travel providers, illustrated how listening to customer can drive personalised information, and shared a real-world case of a major provider that shifted from mass campaigns to real-time, behaviour-driven trigger campaigns.
A live survey of participants revealed that the majority of them agreed on several points. The technology drivers seen as creating the most value for railways are real-time data on the journey status (e.g. the electronic Ticket Control Database (eTCD)) and on delays and disruptions (e.g. Real Time Mobility Data Exchange service (RTMDE)), digital identity, account-based ticketing, and door-to-door integration of the first and last mile. The personalised services considered most relevant to passengers are automatic delay compensation and customisable real-time notifications. Legacy systems, the lack of APIs and poor data quality emerged as the main obstacles to delivering personalised services.
Participants then split into breakout sessions to come up with ideas around three questions:
- How can railways use each passenger's individual situation to personalise recommendations, planning, offers and booking, while earning their trust and protecting their privacy?
- How can railways combine live data with existing and emerging digital tools to personalise the service during and after the journey?
- Which common specifications and shared digital services should the industry develop and promote through UIC to enable personalisation at scale?
The discussions generated a wide range of ideas, which participants then sorted by order of priority.
