Many of the new or modernised railway stations have already applied modern concepts from own sustainable systems for energy production, performing security systems, e-ticketing and communication systems to a revolutionary architectural design facilitating the improvement of the access for passengers. Impressive and futuristic buildings, doubled by the use of sustainable materials and concepts meant to increase the passenger transit flow, transform many of the current railway stations into architectural and public transport models.
The way railway passengers buy tickets is already undergoing a transformation and modernisation process so that ticketless systems based on smart cards and contactless technologies are preferred to the old paper ones. More than that, ticketless concept developers intend to make a step forward by replacing smart cards with near-field communication (NFC) technology using chips which can be integrated in credit cards or in smartphones for the payment of travel prices.
The leaders in this field are the developed countries in Asia, Japan and South Korea using this type of technology for several years. Therefore, for Japanese and Korean passengers, chips installed in phones used for the payment of the travel ticket are not a technology of the future, but of the present. A recent poll revealed that 69% of Asians would prefer this travel payment method compared to only 26% of those interviewed in Europe and the USA. Nevertheless, in Europe, Germany continues to be the leader in terms of innovations for passengers, therefore the near-field communication system was implemented as a pilot project in Berlin Central Railway Station (Hautbahnhof) and Potsdam railway station.
An analysis carried out after the implementation of the pilot project showed that 82% of the customers had a positive answer to the easy use of this technology, the satisfaction level reaching 75%. As a result, all the 320 railway stations serving the long-distance railway transport benefit since November 1, 2011, from the Touch & Travel technology.
Railway stations will need to adapt to the increasing number of passengers but also to their demands. Nevertheless, the development of railway stations will be carried out in different phases and will include many changes over the time.
The design of the future railway stations will have to consider attributes such as the sustainability, accessibility, intermodality and to include smart ticketing facilities.
According to the data provided by the International Union of Railways (UIC), at world level the number of passengers in the railway transport increased by 3.5% in 2010. This and the development of the high-speed railway transport had an impact on the way passengers need railway stations to function and operate in the future.
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