The potential of in-train crowdsourcing

Nowadays railway operators are improving their services by offering IT-services within their trains. This paper reports on a design study we performed at Dutch Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen, NS) in order to research whether or not NS can crowdsource activities utilizing the novel in-train IT infrastructure it is currently rolling out, and provide their passengers a better journey experience at the same time. We specifically focused the potential of future services an the users intention to use the service over time. The study followed a design cycle, in which we created artefacts, and analysed adoption of these artefacts utilizing an in-train survey. Despite the limited scope of the study we can conclude that there is potential for in-train crowdsourcing. Passengers do show interest in the applications we designed, and the more general concept of in-train interaction. Adoption is more likely to occur when serious applications are used, as opposed to entertainment applications.