The product of the railways is the successful arrival of passengers at their chosen destination.
The fact that this isn't obvious, and that instead the means by which that product is delivered is considered more important than the actual arrival of passengers, is very telling.
This is a common issue in the technology world - too often, the actual end result is overlooked, for the sake of the means by which that product is produced. Your special organisational tricks mean nothing if the customer is left at the station, standing in the rain, hundreds of kilometres from home.
The timetable doesn't get anyone home. The trains do. The timetable just describes the intent - it is a requirement which describes a service, not a product. The train is required to show up at that time, and by publishing it the train company is establishing agreement with its customers in an open and fair manner.
A product is something which is produced, and the word 'product' describes, after the fact, that which was produced. A service is an act which is performed in support of producing something. Timetables are a service which are subservient to the fact of actually producing the desired result. I do not go to the train station to look at the services being promised delivery; I go to engage in the act of using that service, to gain my desired product: my ass at home, making a cuppa.
Disclaimer: if you've taken a train in any one of 38 different countries around the world, chances are your safety has been being predicted by SIL4-level online tests I've written for that purpose ..
The article got off on the wrong foot from the start by separating the purpose from the product. To my mind the purpose is the product and always will be.
> To my mind the purpose is the product and always will be.
A lot of industries would disagree with you. There are plenty of products where the physical form and direct purpose of the product itself is quite disjoint from the product they are actually selling.
For example, Hermès doesn't sell bags to carry stuff in - they sell status symbols. Restaurants don't sell food for sustenance - they sell a dining experience. Car companies only tangentially sell modes of transportation - they are treated more like fashion items in practice. Items like wedding rings have zero purpose - what they are selling is a physical manifestation of an emotion.
If everything we ever interacted with was 100% utilitarian, we'd be living in a very dull world.
You misunderstand my point. I'm not saying that the purpose of Hermès is to sell bags. I'm saying that the _product_ that Hermès sells is status, and the product of a restaurant is a dining experience.
On the other hand, "successful arrival of passengers at their chosen destination" doesn't say much either. That's the absolute bare minimum. It's like saying that the product of airplanes is to not crash. Technically true, but meaningless on its own. "Passenger arrives at destination" is also nothing more than a requirement which describes the service - and that could even be met by sending me a taxi!
You're absolutely right that a fancy timetable with all its trains getting cancelled is worthless, but so is a train service which doesn't provide useful routes, which is delayed by hours, and which only runs once a week. When I am looking into commute options, they are selling me the timetable: if they don't provide meaningful transit options, they aren't getting my ass home anyways.
The product they are selling is the promise of a convenient transit option - which is presented in the form of a timetable, and delivered in the form of a train. And yes, if they can't reliably deliver on that transit option by not getting me from A to B as promised, I will be asking my money back.
What the article points out is that the distinguishing feature of the railway is that the company has no control how and when you use the train. It's less like someone selling you a journey and more like renting a car. You do not get promised to be brought to your destination, you get promised the availability of the vehicle. That's the same with railways, you get promised the availability of movement at a specific time. That's what the timetable is.
That's also a common criticism by people who prefer there cars: With a railway you need to put in work and decision how you want to travel to a degree that you don't need to in a car.
SIL as safety integrity level ?
Now replace “timetable” with OKRs (objectives and key results).
I think the "successful arrival" framing isn't accurate. Or at least not comprehensive. Granted, "Commuter travel" vs "Leisure travel" are probably two quite different products.
Marketing guy Rory Sutherland talks about the product of the train journey a lot. I think there's a lot of wisdom in the idea of spending finite budget trying to make the travel experience more enjoyable rather than trying to make the journey quicker. (excuse the shortform slop) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bywe3NUOB1I
Tell me the percentage of passengers that get on a train not intending to arrive at their desired destination ..
>Granted, "Commuter travel" vs "Leisure travel" are probably two quite different products.
The distinction is irrelevant, since both groups are travelling and, presumably wish to effect the end result of that travel: to arrive.
Sure, travelling in style and class and comfort - for sure, these are secondary sub-products/-services. But I don't get on the train for its food or for the disco car - I do, eventually, actually want to arrive in Hamburg.
People sometimes take leisure train trips that drop them off at the same location they boarded the train. That destination can be reached faster if the trip never occurred, so that’s not what people are paying for.
Similarly leisure trips can be vastly less sensitive to moderate delays, thus some sleeper trains stop at night so people can get a better rest even if it defeats the purpose.
Yeah, but those are edge cases and are in no way representative of the final services and products of rail companies across the world.
Everyone is looking for a slightly different product, but edge case can tell you a lot about market conditions.
A highly optimized overnight train to Disneyland should look different than an optimized overnight train to Chicago.
Yet .. both cases have a destination.
A stop sure, but the vast majority of people would want a round trip to Disney.
Chicago is likely a stop along a longer journey and a significant number of passengers would happily skip it allowing for more freedom in timing.
Cool. Now you’re no longer discussing the nature of the product of rail transportation, but rather the nature of consumers’ free will.
Either way, if you got on a trip to Disney and ended up in Chicago, would you say that the rail company delivered the product as promised?
For people starting in Europe probably not, but the trip may have been wacky enough they don’t mind.
Leisure isn’t about the destination.
Did you read the entire article? That's exactly the point it's making, but you decided to pick on the word "timetable"
To be fair, the article is terribly written.
It doesn't even get to its main point, which is that it's about connections between trains, until halfway through. And then it goes into privatization vs nationalization.
A good article should tell you what it's about in its first few paragraphs. But the beginning of this article is some weird high-concept claim that isn't what the rest of it is about, and completely deserves GP's criticism.