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

2 | 01.10.2015 | Citizens‘ Rail – Final Conference

www.avv.de

why?


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


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


Impression: Video 1

www.avv.de

how?


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


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

www.avv.de

results


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


Results

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


Impression: Video 2

www.avv.de

implementation


ImplementationTourism Group at Preston Masterclass

Idea:

convert commuters into leisure travellers


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


Thank you for your attention!Questions?

Why and how to organise student rail masterclasses

Education

Transcript of Why and how to organise student rail masterclasses