Future Rail Business Models

While existing studies envision the future of mobility and foreshadow change, they omit to discuss implications for specific business models and their value creation logics. Yet, identifying development trajectories for existing and new business models is key to determine how railway companies will provide sustainable value in tomorrow’s mobility landscape – specifically, as consumer preferences and technologies change. New technologies enable virtual integration along service, travel, and logistics chains, new transportation production concepts, and added functionality. This opens trajectories for new business models and the augmentation of existing models of passenger and freight transportation. In this report we develop a morphology of configurational options for railway companies’ business models based on the Swiss case, identify novel configurations based future mobility scenarios, and deduce strategic implications for existing railway business models with a particular focus on passengers.