Corporate Travel Focus on Smart Rail Procurement, Sustainability & Productivity Boosts Evolvi Performance

Corporate clients of travel management companies (TMCs) are turning to Evolvi's smart online rail booking platforms in increasing numbers to leverage the lower carbon and productivity gains of business travel by train.

In 2019, more than 11 million tickets covering 16 million journeys were transacted through the TMC-exclusive EvolviNG self-booking tool and the EvolviWS API, which integrates with travel portals, expense management systems and online booking tools. This compares to 9.4m transactions in 2018.

At the same time, corporate travellers benefited from average ticket values (ATV) of around £56 - on a par with 2018 - more than 'beating' the effect of 2019's 3.1% mandated fares increases, thanks to easy access to best value fares and the impact of bespoke policy-setting. By comparison, in 2012 the ATV stood at almost £62, but has reduced over time despite year-on-year fares rises as a result of the widespread adoption of Evolvi functionality.

"More corporate rail journeys than ever before are being managed through Evolvi platforms, driven in part by the cost benefits of smart procurement, but also because businesses seem to be mandating rail over other modes of transport to lower their carbon footprint," said Andrew Cantrell, Evolvi Managing Director.

"While bearing down on cost clearly remains a key consideration, feedback from customers also suggests that environmental considerations and the productivity benefits of rail travel are increasingly being factored in."

Evolvi booking systems have provided corporate users with C02 emissions information linked to rail journeys for many years, detailing comparisons with road and air travel during the booking process.

For example, a passenger journey from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh (journey duration: 04:31) is responsible for CO2 emissions of 25.85kg, while the equivalent for air travel is 160.12kg, and for car (petrol) 113.59kg (DEFRA calculations). 

"While this information was originally used by businesses for mandatory reporting purposes, the debate has now become much more focused on Corporate Social Responsibility in line with wider concern over environmental impact and sustainability," said Andrew Cantrell.

"I believe this is shifting behaviour in the corporate space - and even when electric vehicles eventually overcome challenges in range and charging infrastructure, rail travel will still likely win out for the majority of business users because trains not only connect to city centre locations, most of the time they also provide a more stress-free experience than road journeys."

www.evolvi.co.uk