Exploring Passenger Experience on High-Speed Rail for Digital Engagement: A Case Study of Turkish High Speed Train Passengers

Abstract

As rail travel expands, understanding how passengers experience these environments, particularly those who rely on continuous digital engagement, becomes increasingly important for user-centered design research. Digitally engaged passengers are those who actively use their digital devices for work, communication, or personal tasks during travel. These behavioral shifts highlight the need to examine how digital engagement intersects with usability, comfort, and productivity in long-distance travel settings. This study aims to investigate the train travel interior for digitally engaged passengers, specifically in Turkey, focusing on how the physical and service-related aspects of long-distance Turkish train journeys affect their user experience, digital engagement, multitasking behaviors, and comfort during travel. To uncover these gaps, the research adopted an online survey answered by 181 people who have traveled on Turkish high-speed trains. The survey questions were designed to evaluate the passenger experiences of people using Turkish high-speed trains, particularly regarding digital device use, productivity, multitasking habits, and perception of the physical environment. These constraints were synthesized into five core pain point categories that consolidate the most prominent environmental barriers affecting digital productivity and multitasking during travel, highlighting the design elements passengers perceive as essential for a comfortable and usable digital workspace. These insights support the conceptualization of digitally engaged travel behaviors and contribute to defining a framework that links environmental factors to digital engagement levels.

Keywords: Passenger Experience, Transportation Design, Multitasking, User Experience, Digital Engagement, High-speed Train

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007868