Client Spotlight | Trainline

Mike Hyde, Chief Data Officer, Trainline

Playing an integral role in supporting Trainline's technology platforms, Mindera has been work with the company behind Europe’s most downloaded rail travel app for over five years. Our work covers Trainline's mobile apps, booking websites, the core booking platform, data warehouse, data engineering and AI projects.

Collaborating with our partners sees our team become an extension of their business and aligning with their goals. As such, bringing people together is a regular occurrence, such as our visit to Mindera India in Bangalore in 2024 with a large Trainline delegation from the UK for a full review of the year, together with strategy and planning. It was also a great opportunity to meet face to face as colleagues and socialise as friends.

Continued Growth

Trainline is recording strong growth, selling 200 million train tickets a year across Europe, with net ticket sales growing 23% year-on-year and group revenue increasing 19% year-on-year in its latest results, reflecting the value, ease and convenience the company offers travellers.

Richard Hilsley, MD, Mindera

Looking ahead, it’s more of the same, with continued growth in Trainline’s priority European markets of Italy and Spain, as well as bolstering Trainline’s position in the UK from where the business originates. In short, we see another very busy year for our engineering teams.

Sustainability

A key focus for our work with Trainline will be supporting the business as it continues to build its sustainability offering, empowering people to make green travel choices. It's already taking an industry leadership position through the launch of its personalised ‘Your sustainability story’, providing individual users with an insight into the carbon savings they’ve made through train travel.

As we look ahead, we will continue to work together to re-think how we can use data to further enhance Trainline’s sustainability reporting features to keep promoting rail as the most sustainable way to travel.

Modernisation

Mindera is a firm believer that “you can never be done improving”, and we heard that loud and clear when it comes to Trainline’s plans for its core technology infrastructure and tooling. We’ll be helping the company increase adoption of cloud native infrastructure and tooling to improve resilience and speed of delivery, as well as drive improvements to customer and order services, among other things.

Big data ambitions

The ‘data agenda’ looks set to grow going forward, which is something we’re really excited about. Just over a year ago, we significantly expanded our India operation for Trainline, with a large data engineering capability, which is now providing a strong foundation to build on.

Chief Data Officer at Trainline, Mike Hyde, commented: “Having a great data capability at Trainline is really foundational to delivering on our mission of helping people to make greener travel choices, all across Europe. We're continuing to grow our data team and invest in the right skills and technology from end to end, from exploring the latest advances in AI, to building out a modern and scalable data architecture, and everything in between.

"I'm really proud of our partnership with Mindera, where our teams collaborate together to create world-class data products. It's great to see our diverse set of talented people connect across distance and time zones to drive real innovation, and build a shared culture of creativity and technical excellence. Looking forward to continuing the journey ahead!”

Having fun together

Of course, the Bangalore trip wasn’t all about work. Everyone relished the chance to spend time with each other, which for many was the first time meeting in person. As well as various knowledge sharing, feedback and troubleshooting sessions, there were many memorable lunches and dinners together, some late night dancing and 'international karaoke' in the office on the last day with songs in a range of languages and origins that got everyone on their feet. Let’s just say there’s a reason we’re all in tech and not pursuing a career in the entertainment industry!

Mindera Town Hall

Towards the end of the week, giving our Trainline colleagues some time to themselves, we gathered all Minders from our India office together for a general Town Hall meeting. Hosted by our founder, Paul Evans and Richard Hilsley, we had the chance to cover a review of the year and the important themes for 2024.

The townhall covered our continued strong financial performance (+30% YoY growth), key accounts, our progress in verticalising the business (Fashion, Retail, Fintech, Gaming), the growth in our services (horizontals) and a spotlight on Mindera Labs, our internal ‘idea incubator’ that clients are starting to use more and more. The conversation moved to AI and the notable increase in demand we’re seeing across our clients, which is to be expected.

More About Our Partner

Trainline is Europe’s leading train and coach booking operator, with a market cap of over £1 billion. The group operates through three business segments: UK Consumer, International and Trainline Solutions in 45 countries with 30 million active users per month. It transacts with more than 270 train and coach companies, covering about 80% of rail routes in Europe. Routes, prices and travel times are aggregated to create a seamless user experience and allows for time and cost savings for their consumers. Live and personalised travel updates, along with AI-driven information, are also provided on the app, offering users a smooth journey with less worry.

Get in touch today if we can assist you in your software development journey, as we do for our partners like Trainline.