why and how to organise student rail masterclasses

Student MasterclassesCitizens’ Rail – Final Conference – 1st October 2015

Dominik Elsmann (AVV) Marco Trienes (RWTH)Paul Alzer (Parkstad Limburg) Nick Davies (UCLan)www.avv.de

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www.avv.de

why?

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Why Student Masterclasses?

• Benefits for students• Working in a transnational environment• Experience for students in practical cases• Input from external experts

• Benefits for project partners• New ideas for authorities• Students develop results within the

workshop• „Think outside the box“• Learning more about and from one

important target group

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Preparation

• Fix a specific topic to set the scope (e.g. marketing for local rail)• Invite…

• …from all partner regions• ...from different disciplines• …experts as keynote speakers

• Develop an agenda that allows enough time for input sessions, field trips and workshops elements

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Impression: Video 1

www.avv.de

how?

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How did we do it?

• Think about possible task that offer interesting insights for students but also lead to benefits for the project partners

• Two student masterclass events dealing with different topics:• 2013: student masterclass on station

plans• 2015: Student masterclass on

marketing

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Setup

• Undergraduate students from all 5 partner regions

• Small transnational and interdisciplinary groups

• 2 days, 3 parts:• Site visit for cases• Presentations on subject by external

experts• Working on and presenting cases by

groups

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www.avv.de

results

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Results

• Ideas and input for station plans• Ideas for marketing of local train services

• Implementation• Design ideas for Nuth station (NL) will

be considered by project partner• Idea for dynamic information about

regional events in trains will be considered by project partners

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Results

Students working together and exchanging ideas in transnational groups is an added value and therefore a result itself!

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Impression: Video 2

www.avv.de

implementation

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ImplementationTourism Group at Preston Masterclass

Idea:

convert commuters into leisure travellers

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Implementation

• New website to promote greatscenicrailways.com

• Capitalized on popularity of BBC series ‘Poldark’

• Event at London Paddington

• WiFi access page and homepage of GWR website

• 40% increase in traffic to website, 10,000 extra visitors in 5 weeks

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Thank you for your attention!Questions?