Startup idea: Euro Train Subscription

Humans will probably always want to travel, but increasingly people are aware of the environmental costs of, especially short-haul, flights.

Meanwhile trains are up to 20 times less bad for the environment — and also quite well run, at least in large parts of Europe and Asia. In my opinion trains clearly are a better way to travel as well: more space, slower pace, easier to work, read, and zone out with nice changing landscapes to dream away to… but that’s personal taste of course 🙂

The idea

To promote train travel in Europe, my idea is to build a Euro Train Subscription business with roughly these features:

For €99/month* you can travel once per month to any city in Europe, round trip.

  • when people are on these subscriptions, they will opt for using the train more often instead of buying plane tickets
  • needs to have a great app where you can schedule your trip, also last minute (most train booking experiences now are terrible)
  • target millennials who want to travel but are environmentally conscious
  • design a cool brand around it — train travel also kinda has this stigma of being mostly for older, retired folks
  • bonus points if we at that point also can have faster and cooler looking trains of the future with nice work spaces, great wifi, gyms, bars, TVs, etc.

What do you think?

* (or whatever amount to make the business model work)

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Categorized as startups

By Joshua Schoenaker

I’m a designer and entrepreneur. Currently working on talkjs.com — Chat API with pre-built UI and notifications included.