My preferred train ride

Wish my intercity experiences across the Netherlands were as smooth as this train drivers view from the cabin of a Thalys train from Brussels to Amsterdam implies. But Dutch railways is definitely a work in progress...filthy at the moment because of another cleaners dispute.




My most frequent ride at the moment is down to Eindhoven. Here's the last 20 minutes of the journey. Beautiful countryside mind you - wide open skies.

Contactless Interactions at Startupbootcamp 2013

I remember watching a slightly different version of this talk at LIFT in Geneva many moons ago. But Jan's point about how mobile phones have changed banking, especially in Africa, still hold true today. In fact, countries like Kenya are way ahead of European countries, partly because we have ATM's everywhere. No so in rural Africa. So airtime becomes a currency.

Switch now to Amsterdam and Startupbootcamp, where I'm an in-house mentor to several startups, They've announced a Contactless accelerator program and have launched a search for startups working in the area of  contactless payments in health, transport and retail.We got an update from Dirk Jan de Haan who is managing a team looking at how NFC and related technologies can be used in their railway stations. The Netherlands has made the NFC card compulsory on their public transport system.

I still don't understand why the system is restricted to paying for a train ticket. I have walked away from so many grab and go convenience stores in the station because I know that the lines are too long and I will miss my train. And there are still quirks in the system in that supplements, such as for the FYRA express between Amsterdam and Rotterdam can't be paid with the NS train subscription - only with a bank card. Clearly, a lot has to happen before the simplicity of a card swipe makes life a lot easier.

The highlight of the event in Amsterdam was a great presentation by Lejo Duivenvoorde, who is Strategy Director for the Omnicom Media Group in Amstelveen. I've known him for many years as a very creative advertiser who knew that the secret is in understanding the audience.

He explained successful interactive projects they did with Sony (to introduce the James Bond film Skyfall into the Netherlands), interactive store windows in Germany, Pepsi and McDonalds.

Lejo Duivenvoord

He also showed the GranataPet food case study from 2011. They built a dog food dispenser which was targeted when the owner checked in on Foursquare. Clever. Though I have yet to see the idea repeated.

Finally,  I like the video of the oyster card check ins on London transport. Would love to see similar map with the check ins using NFC across the Netherlands.

Smart Cities and Dumb Transportation Failures

This week Amsterdam is hosting a conference on Smart Cities which I am attending. I believe that a lot of the excitement around social media is going to taper off rather fast and the focus will switch to the Internet of things. How can you use open data sets to simplify and save your life? It's about getting the right information at the right time.

And that's where Dutch railways continually fails to deliver.

There is an app and website called 9292.nl. They run a national journey planner which integrates the bus and train timetables. I used to trust it, until it sent me off on wild goose-chases because it makes some assumptions which are just not true.

First, buses don't wait for each other. So even if one bus arrives at a stand in the same minute as the other departs, you quite often see the connecting bus drive off without you.

But the biggest problem is that train defects (and there are many) are not put into the system. This trip below is in-fact impossible. The overhead cables between Hilversum and Weesp are down, so there are no trains running until 15.00. The only warning I see in the app is advice to book a seat in advance.

Does the 9292 know this? Yes, they do, although they seem to have no way to explain this to English speakers. Their separate page with details about delays is written in Dinglish. Useless. 

Which language is this? The message from the transport company is that they don't want your business

The joke is that there is a bus to Amsterdam from Hilversum station every 15 minutes. Does 9292.nl suggest this as an alternative? No.

It would cost very little to fix it, but nobody seems to care that it's a problem. Which isn't smart at all.

Update: sent a copy of this post to the 9292.nl website and received this reply.

In your blog you mention three issues in our public transport planner. I like to comment on those three issues.

At first you mention the issue of busses that do not wait for each other. I can only say that we use data that is brought to us by all the different transport companies. They determine the transfertime between two busses at a busstop. If clients show us that this is not correct at some busstops we contact the transportation companies to discuss this. If they agree we can change this. But therefor we need more specific data, what is the busstop, which busline and what direction, etc. etc.

Then you mention the fact that we do not show delays/defects in our traveladvice itself. We hope to solve this in the nearby future. It is one of our biggest wishes for the application and website. But when we will be able to show this defects in the advice itself is not yet known.

The last issue is about the disruptions that are in Dinglish, we will put this on our wishlist. It is not possible for us to translate this at this moment. Maybe in future.

I trust that I have been of service to you with this message.

With kind regards,

Natascha Houthuijzen

Marketing & Sales Support Consumenten

            9292| REISinformatiegroep bv

                Postbus 19319

                3501 DH Utrecht

Conclusions: Making this app better for foreign visitors doesn't seem to be a very high priority. So its a FAIL I'm afraid.

NS - Communications Confusion Continues. #FAIL

No information, so time abandon the journey

Dutch railways goes from bad to worse. Arrived at Hilversum Central Station at 1345 this afternoon to find that no trains were running in either direction. The information boards simply say wait for announcements. Which of course don't come. Talked to the driver of the train on Platform 6. How long have you been here? An hour. Any news? Well my colleague says there's a power cut along the line between Bussum and Utrecht. Should I wait? Can't say, but I hear 16.30 at the earliest. I check Twitter. Other passengers say they're hearing the problem may not be solved before 10 pm at least. Someone has dug through a main power cable. Still nothing on the Tannoy. Give up. Abandon ship. Head home in the rain.... Useless. When will they take customers seriously? Someone outside solving people's problems is the very least I expect from an organisation that demands all my privacy details before it will allow me to travel on credit. (take the 320 bus over there to Amstel Station and change for Schiphol...We've arranged a coach in 20 minutes for those trying to get to Naarden) Why is customer service so terribly hard?

Chaos outside the station. No information. No direction. No plan

Why don't train companies want to understand customers?

I book an international train ticket on the Thalys express every now and then. I must confess I have always found the interface between Thalys and Dutch Railways (NS) systems is mediocre at the best of times. Most frustrating is when the system decides there is no seat available at a particular fare and just gives an error message for the whole trip. So you don't know whether it is the outward or return journey that is (apparently) full. The NS side of the system doesn't seem to check availability on the Thalys computer in advance, so you go through all the pages of filling in names etc, only to be dumped back at the start when a booking turns out to be impossible. No explanation - just a request to fiddle around and try again. What a waste of time. Sadly, there is no alternative.

If it was 1992 I could understand. But in 2012 I assume that Thalys just don't care and that NS stands for No Service. What a difference from booking a flight on Easyjet or even KLM. These train guys are asleep at the wheel. Are they reading customer tweets on Twitter? Nah. They don't have a reputation to live up to.

God Help You on Dutch Railways

God help you if you have a problem with your "Oyster" RFID card on Dutch railways. Because you won't get much help from human beings. Bear with me or skip to the bottom for my conclusions.

The Saga

Somewhere between checking in at Hilversum station and being checked by a conductor on the train to Amsterdam (near Weesp), something happened to my NS travel card which made it unreadable on the little device they carry. First I am accused of not checking in. So I asked them to phone Hilversum station to check whether I had indeed checked in. And I had. That's where the smiles ended. At Schiphol Amsterdam station, I couldn't check out of the ticketing system.

So I phoned the Customer Service number on the back of the card. I quickly realised that I should press the other option to avoid getting into a tree of automated answers which basically tell you to put the phone down and log-on to www.ns.nl. About two minutes later talked to someone who went through all the security checks possible and then told me she couldn't log me out of the system nor ask for a new card. "No, you will have to go to a counter at a manned railway station to get two forms. One to send the card back for a replacement, for which there is a charge. And you need to get a claim form because if you haven't logged out of the Dutch Railways system after 4 hours, then the system fines you 10 Euro extra". The customer service agent said she has access to my account but couldn't log me out even though I was trying to report a defective card.

Attempting a Solution

Hope you don't have a train to catch.

Joined the long queue at Schiphol railway station. Waited for ages as someone was told off for paying with a foreign credit card that didn't have a chip in it. Finally, a free agent. Explained the problem again. The agent went off to look for a form in the cupboard. He didn't have the claim form and couldn't do anything more for me because he couldn't read the card. Next?

Dinglish on the Internet

Dinglish - been like that for ages. Love the FAQ's

Went to the customer service pages on the Interwebs. Just for amusement, let's assume I don't understand Dutch. Well, then you're sunk because I think they've used Google Translate to translate about half the site - the rest is in Dutch. Oh, and there's a bit of cheery news in Dutch that the Post Office has delays at the moment so that might affect delivery of new cards.

Conclusions

I find it a disgrace that NS customer service cannot do anything to check people out and order a replacement card with one phone call. My card is in the post - during which time I have no valid proof I have a subscription to NS at all. I'm told a replacement card will take two weeks, postal slowdown permitting.

My conclusion is that NS is a public monopoly where NS stands for No Service. God help places where Dutch railways is winning contracts to run other railways in the UK. I hope UK consumer shows keep a close watch on the performance of Abellio. Sadly, the experience from the lowlands mother ship is simply awful!

Hilversum station at 6 pm today. No-one in information, sorry. 

Will do an update when I get a new card - and perhaps some money back.

Dutch Railways - Trouble at the Terminus

I have a running gag with Dutch railways who are trying to adapt ideas from the airline business but are so screwed up with their own bureaucracy that they are going nowhere fast. No wifi in the trains yet - free wifi in many Dutch buses. You can print out your own ticket at most airline sites. Dutch railways still wants to send you a ticket through the post. Having booked a ticket for yourself, there is no way to see the seating plan on international trains so you can ensure you're sitting next to a colleague on the same train. You can't book a ticket more than 3 months in advance. It's a long list of what's not possible. Several years ago I registered Dutch Railways as a URL - you'd think a bit more logical than the current address which is http://www.ns.nl/servlet/Satellite?....etc. No-one has bothered to call so far.

Oh, and don't try and pick up a guest from Amsterdam city station. They have put up electronic departure boards telling you the times and platforms when trains get the hell out of Amsterdam. But several friends of mine have noted that Amsterdam city station has no arrival boards. Which platform will my friend be arriving on? Good luck with that one!