Going beyond the rails

POC The station of tomorrow

Going beyond the rails

100,000 people go through the Lille Flandres station every day, yet its traffic is one of the newest in France. What do today’s users expect from tomorrow’s stations? How can this multifaceted complex matter contribute to facilitating user mobility, favour urban planning, offer new services through sustainable urban transition perspectives…

Connecting stakeholders

The association Fer de France brings together stakeholders of the French rail sector: Regions of France, Ministry of Transport, transporter companies, rolling stock manufacturers, infrastructure managers… The future of railwayin general, and of its stations in particular, implies combining each one of these entities’ vision of the future, and opening them up to the changing world. The Station of tomorrow project team, formed by Fer de France, brings together 4 young railway managers from backgrounds as diverse as TGV line maintenance, SNCF social strategy, management of major Alstom projects and management of a railway establishment. 

Listening to users

These 4 different experiences, without direct links to the station, are induced to collaborate through a training cycle organised by Fer de France: raising awareness of participative design approaches, commitment of executive managers to listening to users in the field, cultural confrontation during a trip to Japan, organising a hackathon, etc. Ultimately, as Samir Laoudedj, one of the 4 participants in the project, stated: “We are far from being the only and most experienced people to think about the future of stations!”. The vision that emerged from this experience is a green, vegetated and responsible station that reveals indirectly the expectations of railway users today. This vision will converse with all the other visions emerging on the subject around the world. This type of “collaborative training” experience will certainly also help decision-makers to think out of the box and encourage the structures they control to seek beyond the missions that define them today.

  • Porteurs de projet/Project holders :Fer de France
  • Designers :Shaker,Regine Charvet Pello
  • Acteurs/Stakeholders : Alstom,AREP, In Oui,Société du Grand Paris,SNCF Gare & Connexions
  • Crédits photo / photo credits :Fer de France