Steer Davies Gleave discuss passenger experience at AirRail Italy 2015

On 12 November, the Global Alliance AirRail hosted the AirRail Italy conference in Milan. The event provided an opportunity to bring together key industry stakeholders to debate issues relating to air-rail travel connectivity. 

The operator’s point of view

Representatives from Northern Italy’s main airports — SEA (Milan), SAVE (Venice), SACBO (Bergamo) and Friuli Venezia Giulia Airport (Trieste) — presented their infrastructure development plans, focusing on projects that improve accessibility to air termini. All of the representatives agreed that improving air-rail connectivity is a key enabler to the overall improvement of the services offered by airports, and is a fundamental contributor to the expansion of any airport’s catchment area.

The many rail operators in attendance, including Malpensa Express (Milan), Heathrow Express (London), Express Rail Lufthansa (Frankfurt), Express Rail Link (Kuala Lumpur), Ring Rail Line (Helsinki), have emphasised how the success of rail connections to the airports is due, in equal measure, to technical aspects, e.g. timetables, rolling stock, stations accessibility, integration with the airport, and to the commercial policies adopted by different operators. Rail’s modal share for access to airports is constantly growing and in some cases, such as Oslo and Stockholm, it is the mode of choice of one in four passengers.

Steer Davies Gleave’s contribution

Steer Davies Gleave played an active role in the AirRail Italy event by moderating a panel discussion on best practices for wayfinding and passenger experience in air-rail interchanges.

Fred Gangemi, Associate at Steer Davies Gleave, led the discussion and summarised the outcomes by confirming how accessibility is still a critical issue to overcome in order to improve the travel experience for passengers in airports, and is a catalyst for the improvement of station environments.

For more information contact Fred Gangemi, [email protected]