For the past few years, one of the biggest buzzwords in travel has been “seamless,” envisioned as a utopian experience in which every moment of a journey - before, during and after a trip - happens effortlessly and yet is customized to the needs and interests of the traveler.
Then came COVID-19 - upending the travel industry, the way business is conducted and the expectations of consumers.
Seamless is of course still nice, but seemingly overnight, “contactless” has become even more valuable. Now that the coronavirus has made the world aware of the potential invisible risks associated with the virus, the goal of a hands-free experience has become paramount for both travelers and brands.
In ground transportation, the shift toward contactless technology solutions has been developing for years – solutions that, according to Jayride co-founder and managing director Rod Bishop, are actually “not hard” for many operators to implement.
But COVID-19 is accelerating the need for both simple touch-free technology as well as more advanced solutions to rebuild traveler confidence and restore revenues.
Distanced driving
According to Qualtrics, 66% of travelers say they’re uncomfortable riding public transportation, and 62% feel uncomfortable flying on an airplane.
Indeed, throughout the pandemic, road trips have been on the rise: In July, American Express’ Amex Trendex revealed that over half (63%) of surveyed adults around the globe feel comfortable taking a road trip over the next three months.
People that are opting to fly or take a train, too, need a way to get to the airport or station.
“Rides will never be cheaper than buses or public trains, but people are willing, at this point, to trade up for that feeling of not being with someone else," Bishop says about consumer preference for traveling via car.
One micro trend Bishop has observed is people trading out taxis for pre-booked rides to eliminate the payment touch point.
Compared to taxis or ride-hailing services, private drivers, he says, have a better opportunity to indicate their health and safety measures, which typically include not touching a passenger's bags, wearing a mask while driving, installing partitions and providing products like hand sanitizer.
"Professional chauffeur companies ... know that's what travelers want, whereas taxis, in some ways, they say [the experience is touch-free] - but are you sure?”
On Jayride's platform, transport providers that have implemented health security measures have increased their market share by 50%. "That's just a result of people opting into this stuff," he says, adding that this also presents an opportunity for providers to bring to market a premium price and high-value offer that people want to buy. "Travelers will buy if they’re traveling. They want this. Absolutely.”
Importantly, a touchless ground transportation experience can help build traveler confidence around other facets of their trip – and bring in additional revenue to those areas.
Rides will never be cheaper than buses or public trains, but people are willing, at this point, to trade up for that feeling of not being with someone else.
Rod Bishop - Jayride
"The ground transportation industry ... has been the last vertical to get buttoned down within the broader travel sphere, and I think for that reason, it's been seen as nice ancillary revenue with good, high margins,” Bishop says. “But the main game is still flights and hotels, and flights and hotel revenue is under threat.”
By assuring travelers a safe and hands-free experience at step one – the ride - consumers will likely feel more comfortable and confident booking flights and hotels.
Bishop also believes that the changes in traveler behavior seen now will fundamentally alter how people get around in the future. In other words: "I don't think travel brands should be planning for post-COVID.”
He points to New Zealand, where even after the virus abated, consumers did not revert back to their former travel booking and transportation habits.
"The safer play is where companies are backing themselves to outlast a thing - but it's much better to back yourself to succeed despite a thing, because then it doesn't matter how long it goes on for.”
Hands-free hot spot
Similarly, Steve Dennis, managing director of car hire comparison site EnjoyTravel, believes consumers’ current transportation preferences – opting for car services over public transportation - could remain a trend going forward.
For the Norwich, U.K.-based company, part of adapting to the current landscape has been introducing a touchless option for travelers via a partnership with EasiRent.
Through the collaboration, drivers can reserve a car online before picking up the keys from a secure Smartbox collection point at locations in Kings Cross and Marble Arch. EnjoyTravel says it’s the first contactless car hire offering in the United Kingdom.
According to Dennis, the collaboration was in the works prior to COVID-19, but the virus “accelerated the priority to the front of the queue of new products.”
By using the service, travelers avoid unnecessary risks such as interacting with staff face-to-face, waiting in lines or worrying about the cleanliness of vehicles.
Once they arrive to pick up a rental, they contact the provider and the Smartbox is unlocked. Upon their return, they replace the keys and a representative then cleans the car.
Dennis says in Kings Cross, a “large percentage” of customers have opted for contactless pickup over traditional collection, and EnjoyTravel has been encouraged by rental providers to expand its service to airports as well as city centers. He says the company is also in talks with a provider working on keyless car entry.
Touchless tickets
On the rail front, Eurostar has tapped facial-verification technology provider iProov to enable contactless travel from United Kingdom to France.
With the solution, passengers can be identified without a ticket or passport when boarding the train, as well as complete border exit processes, at St. Pancras International station without encountering people or hardware.
"What we're trying to facilitate for the first time ever is a seamless process of going through ticket and border exit checks contactlessly and more fluidly than it's ever been possible before using face verification," iProov founder and CEO Andrew Bud says.
"That means, instead of checking people's ID when they arrive, you check their ID long before. The idea is that you move the process of checking IDs away from the boarding point to the booking point."
During booking, Eurostar will offer travelers an accelerated pre-boarding option, which allows passengers to scan their identity documentation using Eurostar's app before using iProov’s facial biometric check, which uses patented controlled illumination to authenticate the user's identity against the ID document.
After that, travelers would not have to show a ticket or passport until they reach their destination. At St. Pancras, they would enter the contactless travel corridor – designed with technology that verifies their ID - before boarding the train.
The concept, which has already been trialed in airports to manage immigration, has extended to rail as part of the First of a Kind (FOAK) competition funded by the U.K. Department for Transport.
The Eurostar operation is slated to go live in March 2021, and Bud says one complication that has arisen since the onset of the pandemic is how to manage social distancing in the biometric corridor, which iProov is currently working on.
He adds that iProov has had "extremely high levels of interest" from a number of long-distance railway entities, and that the government's ambition for the FOAK project is wider deployment that benefits the entire British railway system and potentially high-speed railways elsewhere.
“One of the drivers for the interest that we've had has been exactly that ability to make the passenger journey contactless. That's a very clear message that we've had.”
Correction: Where EnjoyTravel is based has been updated
* More from our Touchless Tech series
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