Startups Magazine speaks with James Dunne about the company and the challenges he’s faced along the way.

1. Can you tell me about your background and Rail Online beginnings?

I have worked in the international tourism & transport industry for 26 years and after 14 years in the aviation industry, including roles at Concorde International, Austrian Airlines and Singapore Airlines, I moved into the rail space, joining Rail Plus in 2014 as CEO Australia and New Zealand.

I quickly realised that the rail industry lacked the standardisation of aviation processes – when I joined, the company was still manually printing and posting many tickets, which took about five days to process – so I focused my attention on innovation and automation as well as streamlining processes to ensure efficiencies, maximise productivity and profitability and enhance customer service.

Following nearly three years at Rail Plus, which was then bought by Rail Europe, I saw the opportunity to build my own Rail ticketing platform from scratch, but with efficient processes in place right from the start.

Rail Online was incorporated in 2019 and soft-launched in Australia in 2021. The initial web-based platform has grown organically over the past four years, with bookings coming out of Canada, the US, India, and Europe. We launched officially and with a dedicated app in the UK in May 2023.

Our small, core team of four – myself, Kirsty Blows, GM, Lachlan McCallum, CFO, and Kew Muthalif, CTO – have over 65 years of combined travel and rail industry experience and we are genuinely passionate about providing the best travel experience possible for the customer – from ticket purchase to end destination.

2. What does Rail Online offer users and what is its mission?

We’re entering the market as a consumer champion, offering fairer fares for British passengers, with carrier fare price matching, instant refunds on e-tickets and, most importantly, zero booking fees.

We are also committed to eliminating paper waste associated with rail travel, working only with rail operators that have the functionality to offer digital tickets to customers.

Our ultimate goal is to enable customers to travel more intelligently, efficiently and free of hassle, so in addition to rolling out more European networks following launch, we will be talking to operators to explore the possibility of introducing a number of innovative app features to support the customer experience right through to the end of their journey.

Platform notifications, delay warnings, train tracking, and even station navigation tools have the potential to streamline the passenger experience and significantly reduce time spent in front of departure boards, taking the wrong exits, or waiting for delayed trains, for example. In today’s fast paced world, people need to move more effectively around major cities, so if we can save someone five to ten minutes a day each day, that’s got a lot of utility and value.

3. How do you differentiate from your competitors?

Our key competitor is Trainline, which undoubtedly dominates the cross-UK rail booking space.

At a price point level, our key differentiation is that we don’t charge booking fees, so there is an immediate cost saving for customers booking through our App versus using Trainline.

Given the cost-of-living pressures that we’re all facing at the moment, customers who book through our App on a regular basis stand to save quite a lot over a 12-month period. For example, a return journey from Bristol to London in June on Trainline sees a booking fee of £1.99 added to each purchase, resulting in an annual cost of over £90 in fees for those travelling once a week for 47 weeks of the year. That is a significant saving that can be had simply by switching to Rail Online.

In addition to immediate cost savings, Rail Online offers instant automated refunds or exchanges on e-tickets should customers need to amend their journey. For e-tickets eligible for a partial or full refund under normal cancellation conditions, Rail Online customers will receive immediate confirmation of the refund in progress, followed, only a minute later, by confirmation of the completed refund and the amount that has been paid. Trainline refunds can take anything up to five days.

Rail Online also allows customers to book travel in North America (Amtrak in the USA and Canadian VIA Rail) and France (SCNF, including Eurostar), whilst Italian, Swiss, Spanish, and German networks will be added to the platform imminently.

Lastly, we offer round the clock customer service thanks to presence in Australia and the UK, with North America to follow.

4. What has been the biggest overall challenge so far?

being a (non-UK) startup means we have a journey ahead of us to build brand credibility and consumer trust in the product. And taking on a giant like Trainline, that is so consolidated in the rail travel space, is no easy feat. Rail Online offers genuine added value though, and we are really open to getting customer feedback too. We see this as a joint project and customers are the best placed to help improve the app and ensure the offering evolves to serve real needs. It’s a symbiosis – if it works for the customer, it works for us – so we’re hoping that we can gain loyalty by having a continual two-way conversation with our audiences.      

5. What is next for Rail Online? 

With a number of new and innovative features to roll out this year and next (watch this space!), we’re on a mission to become the most valued and frequently used rail booking platform.

The short-term goal is to provide a more intuitive customer journey and help customers travel better – whether as part of their daily commute, a family day out or as part of a cross-country adventure. The longer-term plans involve a much wider, more integrated global travel offering, but we can’t talk about that just yet…