National Rail Enquiries launches mobile site for instant rail updates on the move

National Rail Enquiries (www.nationalrail.co.uk) (NRE) has launched a new version of its site optimised for mobile users (http://m.nationalrail.co.uk/), providing rail travellers everywhere with instant access to up-to-the minute train information in the palm of their hand.

The mobile site boasts a new look and feel aligned with the main NRE website and offers commuters and other rail passengers a vastly enhanced user experience through stripped-down code, delivering super slick page load times and easy to access real-time information.

Since going live with the new version, access to the main NRE website from mobile devices has gone down by 29 per cent, while usage of the mobile version is up 129 per cent. The number of unique mobile visitors has also increased by 267 per cent.

Designed and built by digital agency Fortune Cookie (www.fortunecookie.co.uk) , the new site also makes information about travel disruptions, especially during bad weather, easier and quicker to find and introduces the ‘station picker’ drop down list to mobile visitors for the first time. Mobile users can also access station information to find out about local facilities, such as car parking and refreshments.

Chris Scoggins, Chief Executive of NRE, says: “We’ve seen usage of our mobile site increase significantly over six months and people using the main NRE website on mobile devices has more than doubled in the last year, showing a trend towards greater mobile access. But there was clearly a need for the mobile site to replicate the main website much more closely. The new version delivers a far superior user experience, and we’ll be introducing further enhancements on an ongoing basis. Early feedback and uptake of the new site have been extremely encouraging.”

Justin Cooke, CEO of Fortune Cookie and Chair of BIMA, adds: “The mobile version of one of Britain’s busiest travel websites wholeheartedly supports Fortune Cookie’s ethos: improving the digital world to make the real world a better place. Mobile usage will only continue to grow and the mobile NRE site will only continue to improve. Of course, we cannot guarantee that rail travellers won’t suffer delays and disruptions, but we can guarantee they’ll know instantly about anything that affects normal service wherever they are and from whatever mobile device they’re using.”

Test the new mobile site: http://m.nationalrail.co.uk/ <http://m.nationalrail.co.uk/pj/pj>

For more information about National Rail Enquiries visit www.nationalrail.co.uk <http://www.nationalrail.co.uk> .

FACTFILE:

National Rail Enquiries (NRE) is the definitive source of information for all passenger rail services on the National Rail network in England, Wales and Scotland. NRE is part of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), which is responsible for providing business services to the Train Operating Companies. NRE handles an average of 1.3 million journey enquiries every day either through their contact centres or self service channels.

Virtual tours come to mobile Apple users

International photography company PhotoWeb has realised a technical breakthrough that until now has been beyond the reach of mobile Apple users – the ability to view panoramic virtual tours online.

 

This is a vital development as more people are using mobile rather than fixed computers for their web searches. The number of global mobile search devices is predicted to grow to 1.8 billion by 2014 – outstripping the current PC and Mac internet population of 1.4 billion.

With hotel research and booking now done almost entirely on the web, and many people wanting to make informed comparisons and decisions via mobile searches as they travel, accurate and realistic virtual tours of rooms and facilities are increasingly important to PhotoWeb’s hospitality clientele.

But because Apple mobile devices haven’t so far supported Flash, Java or QuickTimeVR - the three popular virtual tour technologies available today - their users have until now been missing out on this functionality.

All that’s now changed, thanks to a recent update to the Safari web browser combined with the innovative new Universal Multimedia Viewer system developed by PhotoWeb. This can identify a mobile Apple user and automatically switch to an HTML5 code to provide full 360 degree viewing. No apps, plug-ins, downloads are needed.

“Our goal is to automatically provide all mobile devices with an image that’s exactly sized and optimized to load quickly and match the resolution of the device” said David Firestone, VP of Sales and Marketing for PhotoWeb. “So the viewer we’ve developed will recognize the device that’s being used, and source an appropriate image from a single high resolution file, using the technology preferred by the device. This means that in addition to supporting the iPad, iPod, iPhone and other small mobile devices, we can also offer optimized viewing in high resolution on larger screens, including a massive 2560 x 1440 view on a 27" Apple iMac.”

As well as displaying virtual tours, PhotoWeb'snew viewer runs video and presents still photos, using three tabs to access all content. It includes a “book now” button that takes users straight into the booking channel, a mapping function that includes the location of the user and the hotel, and a “share” button to link to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and hundreds of other social media sites.

PhotoWeb's Universal MultiMedia viewer is being implemented on thousands more travel sites and affiliates, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Priceline, Kayak, Yahoo, and Google - allowing visitors to finally be able to view all rich media content on their mobile devices, before deciding where to book.

Try out the new Universal MultiMedia viewer on all your devices at:
www.PhotoWebUSA.com/ihg/hotelindigo/sanis