- 3 months ago
Stations handle millions of journeys every day, but their potential as intelligent infrastructure has gone largely untapped. By layering AI and real-time data onto physical infrastructure, SNCF is building a "station OS" — a connected operating system that optimizes passenger flows, reduces energy consumption, and coordinates operators, citizens, and services in a shared urban space. How does a legacy infrastructure giant become a platform for open innovation and sustainable mobility? And how do you attract the tech talent to build it — when your product is a train station?
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TechTranscript
00:20hello hello black stage how you all doing yeah you feeling good yeah okay well we're here to
00:29talk about something that's a little bit different we know that technology is forcing all of us to
00:35think differently today right but we're talking about living differently as well and we're looking
00:43at railways but not specifically the railways we're talking about the infrastructure that
00:48obviously serves the railway that serves us we know that railways have always connected people
00:53and places right well sncf is asking a much bigger question can stations become intelligent systems
01:03that actively shape how cities move consume energy and interact and as we look to the future where is
01:12of course ai in all of this i'm sure everyone's been talking about ai and what is the challenge
01:18then for infrastructure that is well really old right alan so how do we build this future everyone
01:26please be upstanding for alan resplandé bernard the ceo of sncf who joins us now on the black stage
01:36so first things first how was your journey here did you get here on time excellent first of all
01:44because i was very happy to come to vivatech previously i was the ceo of a sports and horse
01:51baiting company pmu and we are partners of the french of the first vivatech and i was on stage
01:5710 years ago sorry for the young entrepreneurs that were not even born 10 years ago but for me vivatech
02:06it's old memories it's an oldie but goodie and i was happy to come here my train was on time
02:13and more important i was able to get a macaron from pierre armée in my train station because we
02:21will talk about putting the human first in technology but in france when we think about
02:27the human first we are thinking about food first so that's i hope you will be able to get a
02:33macaron
02:33in pierre du nord but let me just ask you one thing as someone that obviously uses the trains
02:38as well as a passenger even though you are of course the ceo when you travel on a train is
02:45there
02:45anything that still bothers you today yes we are running a very complex system we in sncf we run
02:57more than 15 000 train per day 3 000 train station it's a very strong strong system we have more
03:08than 10
03:09million passengers per day in our train station which is a bigger foothold than amazon in france
03:17so honestly i don't know why i'm in the black stage today while jeff bezos was in the main stage
03:24two days ago because i'm on the black stage that's a good reason so it's a very complex system
03:31and we definitely need to make it simpler for the passenger we you you don't have only a train
03:41travel you travel you travel by foot by bicycle by car by bus by plane to go to the train
03:48station
03:49and for that you have to juggle with multiple apps multiple systems it's too complex so we have to
03:56simplify all the world journey okay well let's start with a little bit of a visualization no i'm not
04:02doing meditation don't worry guys but since you're all here i mean first of all hands up who uses
04:07obviously public transport and trains yeah excellent so all the train spotters are here yeah all of us
04:13yeah fantastic so i want you to first of all think about when you catch a flight what are the
04:21sort of
04:21things that go in your head you know your checkpoints your lists i need to do this i need to
04:27do that
04:27you think about things like the security checks but what you also do and i'm pretty sure about this
04:34put your hand up if you do this you think about the airport itself right do you do you think
04:39about
04:40that i mean for me sometimes i think oh i haven't managed to um i'm going somewhere i need to
04:46buy
04:46something okay fine i'll get it at duty free i'll buy it at the airport right yeah who does that
04:52they
04:52think about buying something at the airport yeah fantastic but do you think about that when you go
04:59to the train station if you did it would be you know the the average of doing that is a
05:06lot less
05:06so as you were saying 10 million people footfall through stations so what is the station os what
05:15are you building in sncf because they're not focusing on the trains this isn't a discussion
05:20where we're talking about how we're going to improve the infrastructure yeah the trains are
05:24pretty good already in france i would say come to the uk you'll see what bad trains are like no
05:28offense i hope that's not part of your infrastructure but yeah so what is the station os talk us through
05:35it
05:35maybe before that i can come back to your comparison with airports i think the main difference is we
05:42are a far bigger we have a far bigger impact where we have 10 times more people in train station
05:49than
05:50in airports and the difference is daily commuting so a lot of people going through the train station
05:56and it's true that for a long time we first thing of train station as a utility and now we
06:04are trying
06:04more and more and make it a destination so over the last 10 years a big change in french train
06:12station
06:13you can go to gardelion you will see la galerie des fresques with food retail but also we introduced 15
06:22years ago piano hangar where you can play piano in a train station so we introduced art in the train
06:28station and next year we will launch a new gare d'osserlitz wood and it will be a huge destination
06:39not just to take a train but to to go to for shopping and so on so we are more
06:44and more thinking about
06:45train station as a destination uh like airports with more constraint because we have much more daily
06:52commuting and less time in the train station but if i can if we start on the operating system
07:00the idea is we have a very nice in france in physical infrastructure but all the data driven and
07:09ai driven tools will help us add a layer of technology above the physical layer to improve the customer
07:20journey we have a lot of areas where we can do that first of all passenger knowing the passenger
07:29uh working on the flow of passenger uh working on the flow of passenger make it easy the flow management
07:37we can avoid bottleneck and so on with technology monitoring we have a lot of cameras in our train
07:45station so we can monitor that it helps us for security to prioritize the interventions see where
07:54a problem can arise so uh security is clearly something another one very mundane but with a huge impact on
08:04our operations
08:04it's lost luggage we are losing thousands of hours due to lost luggages tomorrow we will be able to see
08:15much quicker when there is a real problem a real threat and when it's not a problem it's just my
08:22daughter
08:23playing with her phone and forgetting a piece of luggage and it will be easier also for the customer to
08:32recover
08:33with ai systems we also are working on with the the shops to better know the customers to adapt to
08:44their needs
08:45we also working on advertising because uh on the advertising business the uh the outdoor advertising is losing
08:59ground for the moment if tomorrow i'm able to tell all the the the firms and the advertisers and company
09:09the who is going through and in front of my screens i can sell better advertising so i will get
09:17money to
09:18invest in nice train station so you can see there are a lot of areas where we can do that
09:24what we need
09:25is really a focus a client-centric focus and then to integrate all the data we can we already collect
09:33in
09:33our translation and so what did so obviously this is data that is based on the footfall through
09:40particular service points or or or stations isn't it the data is based on the people that are coming
09:46through and so based on that data you then put the different things into place so whether it's the
09:53right advertising the right kind of shops uh food is is that is that what it's doing is that is
10:00that how
10:00you're growing each station as a sort of an individual ecosystem for the people it serves
10:06yes and we have to to to do it in an ideal world and then we have to manage the
10:13real world which is
10:14quite different uh so first of all we try to to look at how we want people go walk through
10:22a train station
10:24now you can like you like it or you dislike it but in airport you have they are almost all
10:30alike and
10:31you go through a like an ikea system but in circle instead of straight lines we cannot do that in
10:41a train
10:41station because the train operations and the shops are much more mixed together but we can work on where
10:49we put the screens where people tend to stand in front of a screen waiting for their information we
10:56can give them information on their laptops on their phones for them to be able to walk and go to
11:02the
11:02shops without having to wait in front of the screen the way we will put the escalators where we put
11:10all the
11:11ads will change the way they walk through and it can help us have a good security system
11:17and to reduce stress and to help them shop before going to into the train so that's something we do
11:26and in real life we have to monitor in real time what's happening when someone is falling down in an
11:33escalator when and we need to be able to react quickly with all the systems the the company that
11:43are running the trains because we can tell them you or the the one running the the tracks and tell
11:51them you shouldn't send a train a new train in all one because we have too many people in wall
11:58one you
11:58should try to go to all two and so on and we can work also with police forces if we
12:04need so we really
12:05need to integrate all the people they have a common system to manage the daily disturbance in a train station
12:12but just to get this clear what you're doing is utilizing thousands of assets that are already
12:18in place in these stations this isn't building something completely new is it it's optimizing what
12:24you have in place that's when you you run a train system you have a huge legacy more than 100
12:33years of
12:34investments and so we have huge investments to make on on the tracks but also on the train station and
12:42they were built in the 19th century and 20th century so we have to adapt them but we have huge
12:52opportunities also because they can attract people because they are nice they are the entrance of the
12:59city they are in the middle of the city or a part of the city life so that's also an
13:06opportunity just
13:07not to go to a train station to take a train but also to shop to go to a pub
13:13if you have a pub in
13:14your train station and so on i mean there was something that we were talking about earlier where
13:18you were saying that you know you hope for the future where someone can give grandma her flowers
13:23would you like to explain that one we now you you can shop in a shop in a train station
13:30then you get
13:31into your train tomorrow it could be easy to to shop online and we can deliver what you have by
13:40bought in at the end of your journey so for example that was the example we we discussed
13:48yeah you're taking the train to see your your grandmother but because you are working hard
13:53you forgot the flowers so in the train you can buy the the flowers and we will deliver them at
13:59the end
14:00of your travel and you will be happy and smiling with your grandmother when you see her i'm sure
14:05there are many grandmothers that will be happy and mothers too and mothers too but the idea of this
14:09station so we've talked about utilizing you know the current infrastructure so this isn't about creating
14:15something brand new shiny this isn't about you know just following the new yeah this is also about
14:22no one gets left behind so you're probably listening to us thinking okay fine sncf they're going to create
14:28these shiny new ai you know tech savvy new um os platforms all of that these stations but you're not
14:38putting them into the big city centers that already are optimized for everything big and bright and shiny
14:45you're making sure that these os stations go into rural areas isn't it yes we we have
14:52uh 100 and 100 000 assets all over france you know 3 000 train station they are already monitored
15:01we can uh shut down or uh re reopen an elevator from afar we can talk from paris into in
15:14a train stay a
15:15remote train station so we can manage all the train station uh from from a distance and with that we
15:23can
15:24give access to the train to everybody in france so it's not we are investing in lot a lot in
15:31the big
15:31train station in paris garden or is the biggest train station in europe so we need a lot of technology
15:38to to run this very complex system but we are also managing very small rural train station and we can
15:45do that at a lower price but with high quality service because we can do that from with a remote
15:52system smart station system we don't need to be there 24 hours 24 hours we can give access to
16:00uh uh sustainable mobility to everybody in france and i think that's very important for us it's true
16:09from people living in the rural area but it's also true from people that are not tech savvy uh we
16:18always
16:19want to have a plan b if you don't like technology and i think the opportunity we have now is
16:26we can add
16:27technology for all people for the train station managers for them to be able to answer questions
16:34and now if my grandmother wants to visit me she doesn't need to have uh to have an app and
16:41so on
16:41she can go to the train station and that would be one of my employees that would be have all
16:46the
16:47information and i try to save time for him to be able to answer her question directly with a real
16:54human
16:54being well that's i think that's a really nice aspect to ensure that there is that inclusivity
17:00especially of you know whether you call it older generations or the less tech savvy because obviously
17:06everyone talks about optimizing ai now maybe quantum's coming in the future but it's really
17:13important that you know a simple service which is to get essentially from a to b or a to z
17:18wherever you
17:19go that it is inclusive of all passengers um so that yeah i mean but what i really wanted to
17:26ask
17:26you about that is is that the now so you're optimizing these stations to have the best you
17:32know to be an os system but to also be inclusive of people that aren't tech savvy but is there
17:37a plan
17:37that maybe you you sort of go full tilt towards technology in the future i mean will we still see
17:44people
17:45um you know people working for the train companies at these you know stations or not
17:51we will and you will have people in the train station or you will have ability to to talk to
17:57real people
17:59and we can do that quite easily you will be in a very small train station you can interact with
18:04someone
18:05from another train station i think that the future is not written and we don't know what will be the
18:12opportunity but
18:12we are at a very interesting stage we are not at sncf testing all the the new trendy tool and
18:21so on
18:22i'm not the it expert you you are the the experts but my educated guess is that
18:30ai model will become a commodity and i think that as a ceo and all my team we should focus
18:38on what are the
18:39consumer needs what what are the the client needs we need to understand what's going on in the it world
18:48and then when i'm have a clear view of the customer need i will ask all these it genius to
18:57help me meet
18:58these needs and the main uh idea is really to put the the human first you know uh technology uh
19:09road map
19:11because that's where you you can really bring value i don't think technology for technology is something
19:17useful so i try to read a lot of books from it experts but i think that the most important
19:26one that
19:26was recently published by a a tech leader is the encyclical by pop leo magnifica humanitas saying that
19:38you need we will embrace the future but we need to take control of the algorithm of the data and
19:45to use
19:46it with the humankind in mind and to serve the humanity because that's that's very interesting what
19:55you say because they you know i was going to ask you know does the station become intelligent you know
20:00what are we actually talking about here or is the station the intelligent layer of the community that
20:07it's serving which which one will it be no the the train station won't become intelligent per se
20:13it's really what we can do with this physical infrastructure and improve the customer experience
20:21through technology and really we don't need to it won't be a tech show it's really you need to go
20:28there to travel or to shop and it has to be easy through technology now there's another thing that i
20:34wanted
20:34to talk to you about um i read a great line that said ai won't kill you but being boring
20:40will
20:41so how do you ensure if you want to make these stations these os stations you know um the go
20:48-to
20:48destination before you get on your train or as you're getting on your train on your journey
20:52how do you make sure that the the retailers for example or the people or the advertisements that
20:58you have in-house are driving you know that they are correct that your data is correct and saying that
21:05these are the right things that you should be showcasing for that community i think that
21:13technology and data-driven tools will help us knowing the customer and we can do a lot with
21:19that but at the end of the day when you want to be a good retailer you need to like
21:27to love your
21:28customers and we have to work with the retailers and we want to make the experience in a train station
21:36and a very good one as a train station manager we introduce as i said the piano hangar we have
21:42art collection in train station it's a stupid decision as far as the return on investment is
21:49concerned and investment but we are proud to to have this piano in the car because we are adding
21:55something the soul in our train station and no uh ai tool will be able to do that
22:03there won't be an ai playing the piano in the future then so let's talk about we've got a
22:10couple of minutes left then so let's talk about what the future looks like i know that you obviously
22:14you're building these os systems but you're also at the same time building uh the infrastructure i
22:21think one of your markers is 2029 for gardu nord so tell us what you're doing there
22:28gardu nord is a good example people want to travel by train and now we have too many people
22:35in gardu nord going from paris to london even the disneyland people yeah whenever you go to
22:41gardu nord you're like oh my god no it's the disneyland guys no so and we have a physical infrastructure
22:50technology won't be enough to improve your experience to be able to get more people in
22:55gardu nord it could help us but we need to invest in the physical infrastructure and we will do that
23:00in order to be able to double the number of passengers in gardu nord going from paris to london
23:06in 2029 but in order to do that properly and to invest wisely we need to add technology so it
23:14will be a
23:15mixed the investment we are starting right now will be a mix of physical improvements and a technological
23:22one to help us receive more and more clients and there are a lot in gardu nord because you have
23:28international travelers and uh local ones commuters but we do that in all our train stations i don't know
23:37how many came from uh charles de gaulle airport in one year next year you will be able to travel
23:44from
23:44charles de gaulle to paris through a high speed metro 20 minutes going directly to a very nice
23:52train station gardu lest and you can go from gardu lest to gardu nord in a few minutes because we
23:59are
23:59also creating a tunnel between the two so we are really working on the physical infrastructure and at
24:07the same time and the system the information system to to provide the right information to the
24:13travelers and it's really a mix of physical and it investment now you mentioned that you were here
24:21i think at the first viva tech so 10 years ago we're here obviously this is the 10th anniversary now
24:26so on the 20th anniversary of viva tech what will the future travel look like and where will sncf be
24:32within that ecosystem first of all uh i'm pretty sure that teleportation won't exist
24:40so you will need a physical infrastructure to travel you will need train and train station
24:46but i think that the main point is we we should be able to make the stress of the journey
24:54disappear
24:54it will be a stressless travel and you won't be stressed about how to get there how to shoot there
25:01how to get information if there is a problem and how to go to the next stage and to see
25:06your
25:06grandmother alan it's been a pleasure everyone please be up sending please for the ceo of sncf
25:14thank you thank you so much
25:18thank you
25:18so
25:18you
25:18you
25:18you
25:18you
25:18you
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