Trainline, a European rail and coach ticketing platform, announced a suite of new features “designed to keep train travelers on track, improving the experience for passengers as they face disruption on UK railways.”

The latest features in the app, said the announcement, account for Trainline’s biggest ever product release to date and include:

• Travel Forecast provides personalized notifications to customers in advance if their train is likely to be delayed or canceled. Customers will be able to see the location of their train in real time with a map interface powered by Signalbox technology. Its forecasting capabilities will continuously improve, leveraging real-world data sources, including Trainline’s base of 18 million customers traveling on the rail network.
• Delay repay notifications alert customers when they may be entitled to compensation, providing customers with estimates of what they’re potentially owed in real time. It then redirects users out to the relevant operator while surfacing all information required to complete their claim.  
• Travel Assistant offers customers a live native chat experience, powered by AI, with real-time travel information, personalized to their specific journey. Now in its first version, although continuing to learn, it is already answering the majority of queries, with fewer than 10% picked up by customer service representatives.
• Train Swap supports customers in changing their travel plans, enabling them to switch onto a new train within two taps. It means they continue to receive live journey information via push notifications on their new chosen journey and secure a new seat reservation, if they’re swapping an Advance ticket. (A Trainline Advance ticket is a discounted, one-way ticket that must be booked ahead of travel and is only valid on the specific train and date chosen.)

Nina de Souza, chief product officer, said: “We’re moving beyond selling rail tickets to supporting customers throughout their whole journey end-to-end, marking a new way to train.” Ultimately, she said, “it’s about giving our customers confidence to travel by train, safe in the knowledge they have Trainline in their pocket, on hand to support with any unexpected changes and by their side every step of the journey.”