Rail industry experts have taken to the tracks to experience an LNER journey from a customer’s perspective as part of ongoing efforts to enhance performance and reliability in business travel.

This initiative underscores the commitment to improving the travel experience for UK-based business travellers who frequently use the East Coast route for their national and international trips.

Senior leaders, infrastructure experts, engineers, and operations specialists from the East Coast Partnership participated in the 09:00 LNER service from Edinburgh Waverley to London King’s Cross for the annual Coffee Cup Run.

This event, designed for networking and performance assessment, saw teams from Network Rail, LNER, Hitachi Rail and Northern Trains evaluating the journey to identify and address potential issues impacting performance, reliability and safety.

Last year’s event led to over a dozen improvements being actioned, demonstrating the tangible benefits of this collaborative approach.

The Coffee Cup Run, a revival of a past practice on the East Coast route, originally involved placing a cup of coffee on a train table to gauge track quality by observing the movement of the cup.

Today, the approach is more sophisticated, utilising cutting-edge on-train monitoring systems and real-time data from the train’s CCTV cameras to identify issues affecting ride quality and safety.

This modern methodology enables the cross-industry group to develop and implement effective solutions collaboratively.

During this year’s journey, the focus areas included infrastructure issues such as overhead lines, cable theft and the impact of weather on services. The teams also explored the potential of technology to enhance performance further.

The Coffee Cup Run not only fosters cross-industry collaboration but also allows participants to witness the direct impact of their work on customer experience, thereby promoting a more customer-focused railway system.

John Grainger, Joint Head of Performance for the East Coast Partnership, stated,

We’ve taken an innovative approach to the issue of collaboration and engagement with the aim of improving performance on the East Coast route. By bringing together experts from different organisations, we’re helping to forge new relationships and, importantly, our teams get to see at first-hand how their actions can have a direct impact on the customer’s journey experience. We believe the Coffee Cup Run sets the standard for future industry collaboration and that initiatives such as this will be invaluable to ensuring we deliver the high-performing, customer-focused railway of the future.

Paul Rutter, Route Director for Network Rail’s East Coast route, added,

These initiatives are vital, allowing us to work effectively with colleagues across the industry to find ways to improve our rail network so that we can deliver better journeys for our passengers. The Coffee Cup Run is a unique event in cross-industry collaboration and recent iterations have already brought about positive change to our railway, such as improvements to ride quality at Colton Junction near York. We look forward to continuing to work with our partners on this event and finding ways to deliver more reliable, smoother journeys for our passengers.

For business travellers relying on the East Coast route, these enhancements signal a commitment to providing a more reliable and comfortable travel experience.

To learn more about LNER routes and journeys, contact your Global Travel Management Account Manager.