Railroads : Some Insights
While this is going on, it is time for the railroads to consider making it easier to do business with their customers. How does a railroad do this? Pull out your Smart Phone and think about the way this instrument can be the simple interface between you and your customer think SmartRailroading (SR). If I can do banking, pay bills, make reservations, check routes and rates, scan a bar code with my Smart Phone, buy a plane ticket and show the bar code to TSA, then there is no reason you cannot interface with a railroad and move a container (even with hazmat inside) on the North American Railroads. I don't know about you but I can figure out how to navigate between all of these features on the first try. It is simple because the seller wants the business and wants to get my cash as fast as they can and it is always before I have the goods or services!
While it does take some investment to develop a Droid, Apple, BlackBerry, and Palm app to cover the SmartRailroading universe making it simple is part of capturing the shipper to easily interface with the railroad and know it is easy to do business with them. Large scale shippers are dealing with trucks, ships, railroads, and 3PL's to move their goods. The railroads need to remove the obstacle of having a hard to navigate interface to do business. A shipper should be able to order equipment, make appointments for a spot/pull, a drey, make a waybill, prepay the shipment, provide weights, hazmat information, and execute the transaction anywhere an antenna is available or dock their device from loading dock to office to transmit the data and receive confirmation. Likewise track and trace with shipment trip plan should be just as easy. The ability to look at financial transactions with the railroad should be just as easy as looking at my bank account in the middle of the mall. SmartRailroading-shipper satisfaction and faster cash flow a winning combination.
