A small revolution has just taken place in the world of mobility made in SNCF. The new application, soberly named "SNCF" and available from 27 January on iOS and Android, offers a single interface for managing business and leisure travel. For complete information on timetables and disruptions on the various rail transport modes, passengers previously had to download four applications and then navigate from one tool to another as required. "This was an expectation on the part of customers, who found it inconvenient to have to switch from SNCF Direct to SNCF Transilien, via TER Mobile and Gares en direct, depending on the trains they were taking," says the railway company at the launch of this new mobile showcase, which includes some 200 European stations to indicate the main connections.
As well as centralising information in a single tool, the SNCF is also entering the era of door-to-door travel. The new application makes it possible to travel from address to address, integrating information from all the Île-de-France operators - including RATP - as well as walking and driving, for a multimodal approach. New functionalities are already planned for the 1st half of 2015, when the application will integrate iDcab, the door-to-door taxi service, and iDvroom, the SNCF car-sharing service.
Centralisation, diversification, but also personalisation: the new tool is equipped with practical functions for business travellers, who can record their usual journeys and benefit from real-time monitoring throughout their journey, with information on connections, platform numbers, delays and station services. All this is directly visible thanks to push notifications. For the time being, the main limitation of the tool lies in its transactional aspect: the application can host a long-distance ticket, but cannot be used to buy a ticket. Until then, who knows, new developments?
