Project Summary
Esoterix’s ambition via the “Personalisation in Rail” project is to track the travel patterns of a minimum of 5,000 rail commuters throughout 2022. By analysing their travel history, including frequency, variety, and ticket types, along with the timing and location of their journeys, machine learning algorithms will identify and assign each passenger to one or more passenger types. The project will showcase how rail operators can utilise this information to personalise their communications with passengers, ensuring that messages are prioritised and tailored to individual needs.
Project Achievements
Esoterix analysed the travel behaviour 35,000 rail passengers (as identified by their ITSO smartcard number) from January 2022 to July 2023 inclusive. Machine learning techniques identified 34 usefully distinct profile types, varying significantly from regular commuters through to weekend leisure travellers (see figure). The correlation of travel profile type to home station location was assessed, challenging the assumption that passengers from the same neighbourhood have similar personas. Furthermore, the project demonstrated how special interests could be ascertained from the travel profile, potentially enriching the TOC’s assignation of its generic persona. Passengers with different travel during school holidays were identified (parents, students and educators) as well as those using rail for specific leisure or entertainment purposes, for example West Ham and Chelsea fans.
Conclusions
The project produced technology which can demonstrably; • correct the passenger persona assigned to a Rail Passenger based on their travel profile; and • enrich the assigned passenger persona through the identification of special interests. Furthermore, the technology can provide a travel-based passenger persona segmentation where it is infeasible to source one through customer surveys. It will mean TOCs can be more relevant in their communications with the Rail Passenger. For example, promoting weekend travel to those who rarely take the train on Saturdays and Sundays, and promoting family days out to parents.
Next Steps
Personalisation in Rail has shown that TOCs already have access to a rich seam of data they can use to send more personally relevant emails. Esoterix intends to: • collaborate with one or more TOCs towards the trial of the technology in a live environment; • integrate event data feeds, to provide the TOC with further promotional opportunities; and • work with industry to standardise the identification of travel profile types, thereby facilitating the profiling of multi-modal journeys in the future.
