Mobility Innovators

East Japan Railways Company (JR-East) launch the TokyoNudge App to improve customer satisfaction through personalized digital user experiences. It includes contextual campaigns to reward loyal passengers, sweeten disruptions, and reward behavior change (e.g. modal shift, peak to off-peak travel) with highly contextual offers from Beck’s Coffee Shop, NewDays, and Station Work.

Customer experience plays an important role to bring back riders to public transport. New technologies like data and analytics, automation, Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain have an enormous potential to connect better with customers and improve the experience. According to KPMG Study (The connected experience Transport and Logistics), there are 6 key components to building customer experience –

• Personalization: knowing your customers
• Resolution: Turning a poor experience into a great one
• Integrity: Being trustworthy
• Time and Effort: Creating frictionless processes
• Expectations: Exceeding customer expectations
• Empathy: Understanding the customer’s circumstances

With “Tokyo Nudge” app is using technology to understand its customers better and reward them in case of unpleasant experiences.

JR East has launched the pilot project to investigate how timely distribution of coupons according to customer’s smartphone behavior information and train operation status will affect customer satisfaction and purchasing behavior.

The pilot is launched on all Yamanote Lines and Keihin Tohoku / Negishi Lines for a period of 2 months (June and July 2022). If the train is delayed for 5 minutes or more when using the pilot lines, the customers will receive a free coupon from JR East. Similarly, if the customers are using the pilot lines from 22.00 to 0.00 hrs, coupons for Ekinaka stores will be transferred at 8.00 hrs the next morning.

The technology is offered by Axon Vibe. The company will use location-based data and will send personalized messages & rewards to customers in case of any disturbance.

Check out the link if you are interested to learn more about Axon Vibe –

Understanding riders’ behavior is critical for transit sector recovery – Roman Oberli