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Our hope for Trainblog is that we can harness the wisdom of the train-travelling public to bring about genuine change in the network providers' agendas.

PROJECT INFO

Blog For Action
Posted: 22 October 2006

Last month one of our beleaguered team sat on a delayed train just outside Manningtree for three hours on his way between the Norwich and London offices. When he arrived in London, late for his meeting, and most of the rest of his life, he asked how he could complain. He was presented with a crumpled complaint form, which he was to fill in, return by post and then wait a month for it to be 'reviewed'. It occurred to him, unsurprisingly, that there were several ways he’d rather give his 'feedback'.

Back at the ranch the team was briefed, the research as implemented and we decided that the most practical solution for feedback was a blogging platform that worked effectively on both web and mobile channels. So we launched www.trainblog.co.uk September 2006.

Trainblog lets travellers post comments on the site from their computer or blackberry or via SMS from their mobile, so people can give feedback when it’s convenient to them rather than their train provider. Feedback is shared immediately and everyone’s free to join the debate.

Basically, the achievement from a community perspective is that Trainblog has created an online community without user entry boundaries. By creating something so easy to use, Trainblog is ideally placed to fit its viewer’s needs.