Let’s be honest, in these strange times a bit of occasional light relief is welcome. So, we’re delighted to see our content partner, NextUp Comedy, continuing to bring the laughs with its new virtual line-up 'NextUp Now'. 

Seven days a week you can stream shows from up-and-coming comedians straight to your home, for free. From the ‘Breakfast Surreal’ morning slot, gearing the nation up for their day ahead, to Saturday’s ‘The Show Must Go On’, where comedians perform straight from their living room and fans get the chance to laugh or even heckle along online. 

It’s been almost a year since we partnered with NextUp Comedy to bring its content to UK rail for the first time. Avanti West Coast, TransPennine Express and South Western Railway passengers now have access to more than 20 comedy shows through the onboard infotainment platform, including the latest from festival favourites Alexis Dubis, Juliette Burton and Alasdair Beckett King. 

Until then, there’s plenty of lockdown LOLs to keep us going. To watch, search for NextUp Comedy on Facebook, YouTube or Twitch.

20 April 2020, London: Global onboard infotainment leader, GoMedia, is Going to California. Starting in Summer 2020, passengers of Northern California’s two intercity rail services the Capitol Corridor and the San Joaquins, will be able to experience great Audible content and stay up to date with the latest journey information, including GoMedia’s innovative “Share-my-Train'' feature running on the innovative Nomad Digital Connect platform. 

With the goal of keeping riders entertained on both corridors, the partnership with GoMedia and Nomad means that Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins riders will be able to take advantage of GoMedia features, such as access to a range of complimentary onboard entertainment and real-time passenger Information via their own connected devices, using the onboard Wi-Fi, supplied by Nomad Digital. Initial content will include a selection of audio books from Audible and a selection of Bay Area magazines, along with real-time onboard information and promotional offers. The integration of Nomad solutions into the on-board environment will improve levels of passenger satisfaction, connectivity and the information passengers need.

...we are able to enhance our passengers' travel experience...

Roger Matthews, Managing Director at GoMedia, says: “This is an incredibly exciting time for GoMedia as we continue to expand in the United States with our first rail service. Our infotainment solution has already proven hugely valuable, available on more than 500,000,000 rail and coach passenger journeys worldwide and we are proud to be bringing our platform to California in 2020. We have enjoyed working closely with our technical partner Nomad Digital, who has been working in the region for some time, and the teams at Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins to create this innovative new service for passengers.”

Rob Padgette, Managing Director at the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA), which manages the Capitol Corridor service, adds: “By working with Nomad and GoMedia, we are able to enhance our passengers' travel experience by providing them with a range of compelling content and personalized information delivered directly to their handheld devices. They can check the latest train schedules and even send their train's estimated arrival time to friends and family using their choice of messaging platform. We look forward to extending these services further in 2021.”

John Voyatzis, Sales Director – North America, of Nomad Digital added: “We are delighted to be launching Nomad Digital’s intelligent train services on Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins. This will deliver a step change in services across the network.

Matthews concludes: “The Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins will be providing live passenger information to passengers when they need it, allowing them to plan their onward journeys whilst on board and reducing any travel anxiety and also improving the passenger experience.  We have proven results in the rail and coach industries across the UK, Europe and North America and look forward to our continued international expansion.”

14 April 2020, London/Newcastle: Rail operators will be able to receive real-time passenger feedback once COVID-19 travel restrictions are lifted, thanks to a new deal between global infotainment provider GoMedia and Wordnerds, the sentiment analysis tool leader. 

The partnership with GoMedia brings Wordnerds’ technology to transport operators, offering artificial intelligence (AI) powered products to make sense of the millions of social posts, online reviews, surveys and forum comments shared daily. 

The software platform will combine passenger feedback from specific trains to deliver granular, actionable insight on individual services in real time, helping train companies track how satisfied their customers are across each network journey. 

Roger Matthews, managing director at GoMedia, says: “The current global lockdown due to coronavirus has given many transport operators and passengers time to reflect on what travel means to them. When the world enters recovery, rail providers will want to track these changing views and collate genuine, meaningful insight they can act upon for their travellers.  

“Together with Wordnerds, we are developing a range of digital solutions to give operators timely data so they can monitor trends, and identify emerging issues, reacting in real time to provide better outcomes for their passengers. Wordnerds’ supercharged sentiment analysis unpicks the nuances to help improve the customer experience.”

Wordnerds’ AI tools understand the meaning behind sentences, rather than counting the frequency of individual words, providing a more accurate understanding of passenger tastes than traditional measuring methods. 

Pete Daykin, CEO at Wordnerds, says: “We combine cutting-edge AI with old-school linguistics to train computers to understand the huge volume of unstructured text that is currently online and is challenging for most companies to sift through. 

“Through our partnership with GoMedia, transport operators will be able to more accurately see how their passengers feel, as they benchmark their performance by tracking topics and monitoring sentiment over time. We aim to help service providers listen, understand and act, and we’re excited to work with GoMedia on products that decipher the voice of the customer.”

03 March 2020, London: Rail and coach passengers can now watch premium international documentaries from global membership VOD streaming service DocuBay, thanks to a partnership with onboard infotainment provider GoMedia.

Available on Avanti West Coast, TransPennine Express, South Western Railway, National Express, Greyhound Lines Inc. and West Midlands Railway services, passengers will now have access to a range of complimentary documentaries via the onboard GoMedia platform. Titles on offer from DocuBay – which launched in August 2019 – include Inside Facebook, I Killed John Lennon, Kayaking the Aleutians and The Wayman Tisdale Story.

We're thrilled to partner with GoMedia...

D Girish, Vice President of Strategy at DocuBay says: “We’re thrilled to partner with GoMedia to bring DocuBay’s broad catalogue of premium international documentary features to passengers traveling across the UK. With films from all over the world and a wide variety of genres — including but not limited to sports, science, culture, history and true crime — these fascinating and relevant stories will appeal to a large segment of audience wherever they may be heading. We look forward to continuing to grow DocuBay’s global OneTribe community.” 

Roger Matthews, Managing Director at GoMedia adds: “In a world of social media and fake news it’s safe to say that the documentary genre is at the forefront of viewer demand. That’s why we’re excited to partner with DocuBay to showcase its range of international documentary films on our onboard platform. The longer length offers great entertainment for leisure and business travellers, allowing viewers to explore a different world, dive into history or learn something new on their daily commute.”

Passengers can access documentary content via the GoMedia platform by logging onto their rail or coach operator’s complimentary Wi-Fi via their smartphone or tablet and opening the web browser.