National Rail Enquiries has won the top prize at this year’s Rail Business Awards, scooping the Rail Business of the Year Award, alongside the Supplier Excellence of the Year Award.
The judges praised NRE for its real time journey planning systems, which represent a world first innovation, delivering significant benefits for passengers. NRE takes a quarter of a billion customer contacts every year, generating £200m worth of sales for the rail industry.
The NRE website was relaunched at the end of 2009 and is the most visited travel and transport website in the UK, with well over 15 million visits every month. Other innovations introduced over the last year have been a facebook page, which allows users to find cheap tickets and find out about any disruption that may affect their journey, and journey planning to London zone 1 tube stations.
NRE has also licensed a number of mobile applications, allowing people to access real time information about train services on the move from smartphones.
Chris Scoggins, Chief Executive of NRE said:
“It’s an honour to win the Rail Business of the Year award. We have a fantastic team that works tirelessly to provide millions of people with helpful, relevant and up-to-date information 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition, the ticket sales that we are able to generate for train companies demonstrate the central role that National Rail Enquiries has come to play in the industry in recent years.
“But we’re not complacent. The challenge now will be to continue to adapt and to ensure that we are able to provide passengers and the rest of the sector with the service that they expect and deserve. The way that people access information is changing rapidly, in particular as smartphones become more and more commonplace. Just like any other business, we will need to continue evolving so that we can keep pace with customers changing expectations.”
Michael Roberts, Chief Executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said:
“Week in week out, millions of people depend upon National Rail Enquiries to find out about train services and get the right ticket for their journey. Winning these awards is testament to the hard work of the whole team in providing customers with first rate services that continue to improve.”
