The RailLive event in Bilbao has just concluded.

Meeting and talking with a lot of people, attending conferences and key notes provided insights from the industry and taught us about the dynamics, plans, what excites the experts and what worries them. We learned the difference between light rails, metro, hard railways and much more.

The central focus of the conversations was how transportation as a service and mobility as a service will change in the future.

Attendants ranged from service providers from Spain, France, Italy, Russia and U.K. to Canadian consultants, German manufacturers, CEOs of travel apps. A railway expert from Colombia. Thank you all.

Here are our key takeaways:

The Cons:

The industry is mostly not aware of the potential of the blockchain. There is a huge educational work required for people in the sector, something that DOVU won’t be able to do alone but only with a joint effort from the global blockchain community.

On average, a specialist has heard about the blockchain but does not know how it works or how to use it for their sector. Fortunately, We do.

The Pros:

They loved DOVU. Every person we talked to was fascinated by our vision and understood our solution even without grasping all the underlying benefits of the blockchain.

even without grasping all the underlying benefits of the blockchain. This was possible because they look quite open to an open loyalty system . Experts understand that trains and metro need an extended ecosystem to solve traditional issues of the industry (first and last mile problem, for example) and are looking for solutions.

. Experts understand that trains and metro need an to solve traditional issues of the industry (first and last mile problem, for example) and are looking for solutions. They need data, and they know their potential . TFL (Transport for London) has smartly monitored the journey of their customers that connected to their wi-fi to understand what paths they choose between stations but also within a single station to change lines. This allowed them to better shape their stations, to wisely place their signage system or plan their advertising model. Other companies might not have this opportunity but still need that type of data. Consumers might want to give it to them in exchange of an useful reward (spoiler: DOVU).

. TFL (Transport for London) has smartly monitored the journey of their customers that connected to their wi-fi to understand what paths they choose between stations but also within a single station to change lines. This allowed them to better shape their stations, to wisely place their signage system or plan their advertising model. Other companies might not have this opportunity but still need that type of data. Consumers might want to give it to them in exchange of an useful reward (spoiler: DOVU). They are intrigued by experimenting. There is awareness that the industry will need to transform to adapt to new forms of transportation (for example, autonomous vehicles). We discussed several potential use cases that gave an idea of the needs and objectives of industry; a couple of particularly interesting examples:



1) Underground/metro/tube. A representative from TFL was explaining how they monitored how crowded different trains are. They can tell in advance that the 8.05 train will be relatively empty, the 8.10 one is moderately busy, while from 8.15 till 8.45 trains will exceed their capacity.

They want to use this acquired knowledge to better deal with network congestion and load management, particularly during disruption periods for metros and trains.

As ticket prices are always the same, can a reward (i.e. a discount for the journey) encourage people to use an earlier train, or maybe divert them to a less busy/more efficient route?



2) Bike sharing. They have become a common option in cities, whether the service is provided by a public or private company. Aside from the initial purchase of bikes and maintenance, one of the hidden costs for the service provider is to move bikes from docking areas that become overcrowded (because they are a popular destination for leaving the bike) to areas that are understaffed, because everybody wants to start their journey from there. So every day there are operators that need to transfer those bikes to keep serving the customers. Can a DOVU based solution help shifting where bikes are left and hence reduce costs for the operator? The same reward could then be used to purchase a ticket at the station, supporting a solution to bring stations closer to consumers’ houses.

Finally, an interesting perspective was brought up by another British transportation company that is planning to operate a light train on the metro infrastructure to facilitate the connection between 2 routes.

This highlights a new trend of flexibility that mixes traditional means of transportation. E-bikes (bikes with assisted power) are being introduced in cities. Taxis that follow a structured route as if they were buses.

If boundaries between transportation sectors are becoming more fluid, there is a need for a fluid loyalty system.

Companies and customers will stop thinking about isolated products and start focusing on a unique continuous service of transportation. An isolated loyalty program specific to trains will not make sense anymore because the train will just provide part of the total value in the overall journey.

A mobility reward will make sense only if it can respond to this shift, and that’s exactly where DOVU is heading to.

Max Lomuscio