New in the České dráhy’s E-shop. A Semaphore to Show Passengers the Load of Individual Services

České dráhy is launching the so-called semaphore system on its www.cd.cz E-shop. This innovation will help passengers using long-distance trains to find out the expected occupancy of a given train connection and, if necessary, it will recommend the purchase of a seat reservation ticket for a trouble-free train journey. This is another customer-friendly improvement to the on-line check-in services which České dráhy has recently introduced.

“We are continuously improving the user experience in our E-shop. Semaphore is another tool which will allow long-distance passengers to better plan their journey and avoid such inconveniences as fully occupied seats on the board of the train. I am glad that we have managed to launch it in a test mode before Easter, which is always a highly travel-exposed period,” says Michal Krapinec, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director General of České dráhy.

The train service occupancy indicator has three basic variants. The green colour indicates a connection with expected low occupancy. The orange status alerts the customer to the expected medium occupancy, when it is recommended to purchase a seat ticket for a comfortable journey. Under the red colour, there are those trains where a large number of passengers is expected, typically these are trains between major cities at peak times. If the capacity of the train is almost full, the passenger may still see the icon and the inscription “Seat reservations almost sold out”.

The expected capacity utilisation is indicated for a particular section searched for. This means that if a passenger searches for a train from Prague to Ostrava, for example, the system will take into account the most occupied section, and the expected occupancy of the train will be indicated according to the heavily loaded train route section. If you search for a connection with a transfer, the expected occupancy of the busiest train on the connection found is displayed. When opening the connection detail, the semaphore is displayed for each train used separately.

The new feature is available on the website in the pilot operation mode from Wednesday (March 27, 2024), and will gradually appear to users in the My Train mobile application as it is gradually updated on mobile devices.

In the past year, České dráhy has introduced even several innovations in the online check-in procedure for its passengers. The on-line purchase of tickets for delayed trains has been simplified, when it is possible to buy a ticket up to the actual time of the train’s departure from the railway station. In the event of a change in the train configuration, passengers with seat reservations are automatically reassigned to another available seat. The ability to save a purchased ticket in the Apple Wallet application is also highly practical.

The supplier of the technical solution for the on-line check-in procedure of České dráhy is the CHAPS company from the ČD – Information Systems Group.