Transporting Cities helps operators & their staff to improve Passenger Experience.

We help operators increase their passengers by undertaking discreet assessments to provide a snapshot of service delivery. We provide our insight to staff in workshops to help them respond to changing consumer requirements and developments in mobility services.

Transporting Cities was founded by Liam Henderson to highlight global best practice and help public transport keep its place at the heart of mobility.

We arrive, we experience, we capture, we explain.

Our passenger experience audits record real time passenger experience, taking the role of a first-time user. We feed back our findings through workshops to help staff understand how passengers think.

Liam

Oct 26, 2017
2 min

Landing in Lisbon

Arriving in Lisbon for a conference last month, I followed the usual arrivals channel checking for signs to the metro. I was staying in the suburb of Belem so Google had told me to take the metro to change for a mainline train at Cais do Sodré. From Plane to Metro After walking from the plane, through a rather chaotic passport control experience, I exited from the arrivals door to see a sea of signs and advertisements. I spotted the Metro logo and directions off above an exit

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Liam

Aug 17, 2017
4 min

Getting About Sydney

This is a bonus 3rd article from Sydney to mention some of the quirks that I didn’t cover in my two other articles, on the Light Rail service and on the Airport Link. In a harbour city, it’s not unusual that there is a large water based transport system. As such, many areas of the city are served by Sydney Ferries, rather than an urban rail network: apart from the spur to Bondi Junction, Sydney Trains services are exclusively west of the central area (the CBD). I found myse

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Liam

Aug 1, 2017
5 min

Sydney’s Airport Link

A Quick Intro to ensure this article makes sense: Like many Australian airports, International flights arrive into a different airport (terminal) than domestic flights. This means that international visitors proceed through a segregated arrivals process into one large terminal. Domestic passengers exit their plane straight into the common airside area mixed with departing passengers, this has an impact on what information a passenger is given in the segregated or mixed enviro

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Liam

Apr 7, 2017
4 min

A Chance of Rain on Edinburgh Trams

Back to the UK for this visit, I was up in Edinburgh a few weeks ago and opted to take the tram from the airport into the city. I wanted to see how ease it would be to connect up a journey from plane to tram to train, to reach the wider region: does Edinburgh Trams offer an attractive airrail experience that would attract users out of their cars? Edinburgh Airport I knew that I wanted to take the tram so that was the first thing I was looking for when I came into the terminal

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Liam

Mar 28, 2017
2 min

Running to San Francisco Airport

Author: Matt Schutz My last post for Transporting Cities I had flown into Oakland Airport and taken the BART into San Francisco. This time, I was leaving SF via San Francisco’s main airport so I was going to make a proper comparison. As I left my hotel I got a notification that my connecting flight had been cancelled so the race was then on to get to the airport ASAP to get on another flight to Europe. Navigating the BART is definitely fun when you’re running to catch a fligh

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Liam

Jan 10, 2017
3 min

BART from Oakland Airport

Author: Matt Schutz Flying on Norwegian to a conference, I arrived into San Francisco via Oakland Airport. Having flown into the main San Francisco (SFO) airport before and taken the BART which works fairly well, I was curious what the connection would be like at the other end of the line. All in all I was impressed by the new link to the BART system and getting downtown. A new BART shuttle link has been built to connect the airport with the nearby Coliseum station so the ai

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Liam

Dec 13, 2016
3 min

Helsinki’s Airport Train

Last month I was in Helsinki for the GARA AirRail conference – of which you can read my conference review here. Never having been to Helsinki before, I took the new Airport Ring Rail Line into the city centre for the weekend. I’ll spare you the details on the sauna and baths and just mention the train in this article. Finding the Airport Station Landing at Helsinki Airport I saw some ticket machines in the baggage hall but I didn’t see any departure information about the airp

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Liam

Nov 18, 2016
5 min

Global AirRail 2016 Conference Review

The annual Global AirRail conference took place in Helsinki last week (9-11 November). I went to see how Passenger Experience was being provided for in new and existing links. What we heard about Passenger Experience in Helsinki The conference was hosted by Helsinki Airport, which is actually in the adjoining city of Vantaa. With the double aim of linking the two parts of Vantaa and providing a rail link to Helsinki Airport, the Ring Rail Line was opened in 2015. With airport

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Liam

Oct 18, 2016
3 min

Transperth’s Hubs

In the first of our articles on Perth I looked at the Passenger Experience provided across the city. In this second article I’m concentrating on the quirks found in the central interchange stations. For a relatively small city centre, there is a lot of public transport: the high-quality, modern infrastructure provides a comfortable travelling environment but it was the consistency of integration between modes that needed some improvement. Perth Station Perth is the main stati

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Liam

Sep 13, 2016
3 min

Travelling Transperth

In the first of 3 articles covering a visit to Perth, Australia, I travelled around this remote state capital on the relatively modern Transperth network. Transperth forms the urban part of the wider TransWA regional transport network; however, I found a few examples of confusing route maps or non-existent visitor information which make my journey difficult. Tickets I found simply buying a ticket to be a challenge: Trying to get a Smartcard – Having flown in from Hong Kong I

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Whatever Happened to Bangkok’s Airport Express?

Liam

Jul 12, 2016
1 min

Whatever Happened to Bangkok’s Airport Express?

The Express Line When Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport Rail Link the link opened in 2010, there were two service available, an Express (non-stop) service into the city centre and a commuter service stopping at intermediate stations. Since 2014, the Express service has been suspended indefinitely (apparently due to a shortage of trains). Travelling through the airport recently, I saw the abandoned Express Line concourse. The only activity there now is some small businesses such

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Liam

Jun 14, 2016
3 min

Up, Down and Around Hong Kong

In a previous article, I travelled on the Airport Express service into the central district of Hong Kong. Once in the city centre, it rained constantly so I had good use for the public transport options to get around. These included the MTR subway network, on-street light rail and the quite unusual Mid-Levels escalators. Central Hong Kong is split between ‘Central’ on Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon area across Victoria Harbour, on the mainland. The easiest way to travel bet

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Liam

May 20, 2016
2 min

Hong Kong Airport Express

Arriving into Hong Kong Airport the obvious route into the city centre was to use the Airport Express rail service. Operated as part of the MTR railway network, it is a limited stop service terminating at the geographically ambiguously-named Hong Kong station, in the central area. Getting onto the Airport Express After a long flight I was very tired and obviously wasn’t tuned into the Hong Kong transport system: the first difficulty I faced was buying a ticket: all the public

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Liam

Mar 8, 2016
1 min

Nice Tramway

There is always a balance between providing convenient and seamless interchange between transport modes and the constraints of the build environment. Transport planners need to make a pragmatic judgement on the cost of overcoming obstacles versus the benefit to journey experience. Visiting Nice, France recently I saw that the modern tram system built through the city passes along a main arterial road into the city centre passes close to the main railway station but does not t

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Liam

Nov 18, 2015
4 min

Malpensa Express

Travelling to the Airport The AirRail Italia 2015 conference was held at Milan Maplensa Airport last week. As I arrived into Milan by train, I had to reach the airport via the Malpensa Express airport service. My introduction to the service was a bit confused though, as the first sign I saw when walking from the Thello train was for a bus service to Malpensa. There was no mention of the Malpensa Express. If arriving from a long distance train at Milan Centrale station, the fi

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Liam

Oct 16, 2015
2 min

Weekend in Washington

I recently visited Washington DC for the first time. I had planned to write a quick piece about the Metro service; however, due to my visit occurring over the Labor Day weekend, it became very difficult to objectively assess the service as, well, the service offered was fairly dire. Planned Disruption Labor Day weekend is quite a major holiday and I flew into Dulles Airport expecting a quick shuttle bus connection to Wiehle-Reston East station where I would change for the Sil

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Liam

Sep 18, 2015
2 min

Connecting the Twin Cities

We’ve previously visited Minneapolis and experienced the Metro Blue Line link to the airport. Back in Minnesota for the annual eating fest that is the Minnesota State Fair, we took a ride on the Green Line across to downtown St Paul. Opened in June 2014, the Green Line shares its route through downtown Minneapolis with the Blue Line before it forks east and crosses the Mississippi heading towards the state capital, St Paul. The central corridor it uses allows trains to serve

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Liam

Jun 3, 2015
4 min

Toronto’s Befuddling Transport Network

As described in a previous post, the fact that Toronto’s transport system doesn’t show that it serves the downtown airport appears to be a reflection of the isolated way that mapping and wayfinding is presented on the network – there is no standardisation. To begin with, there are 3 maps used on the TTC subway. Aside from the lack of consistent design, the information on these maps is limited to subway services with no mention of interchange to other rail modes. Passengers ar

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Liam

Feb 23, 2015
3 min

London Southampton Airport?

Regular passengers flying into and out of London get used to looking up flights from the usual list of airports: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, City and Luton. However, there are options that are slightly further afield which could provide a useful departure point. Beginning a trip in central London, I tested whether Southampton Airport would be a convenient ‘London’ airport. The Route: Southampton Airport (Parkway) station is on the South Western mainline just 1 hour and 6 min

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500 Terry Francois Street San Francisco, CA 94158

liam@railinnovationgroup.com

123-456-7890

Transporting Cities helps operators & their staff to improve Passenger Experience.

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