Swedish passenger rail service company SJ has recently deployed a mobile intelligent transport (IT) system for all of its on board employees. It consists of a handheld computer with wireless access to central systems and has almost a dozen main functions. The system is interesting both because of what it does to simplify customer service and the work environment on board, and because of how it was developed. The system is bi-directional, and helps the staff answer questions both regarding scheduled traffic and changes due to disturbances. It also aides staff duties such as reporting actual numbers of travelers and comfort related maintenance issues. The system completely supports onboard ticketing, but the main objective is not to sell tickets. The main objective is to help staff achieve higher customer satisfaction. Systems development was carried out with what is known as agile methods, allowing the user community to incrementally define the functions of the system without firm requirement specifications prior to project start. This has led to an extremely high acceptance level among users from day one.
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