Hamburg Airport Feasibility Pilot for Seamless Bagshuttle Service

Project Information

shippiesbags

Grant agreement ID: 729589

DOI 10.3030/729589

Project closed

EC signature date 21 May 2016

Start date 1 June 2016

End date 30 November 2016

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost € 71 429,00

EU contribution € 50 000,00

Coordinated by

SHIPPIES GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - shippiesbags (Hamburg Airport Feasibility Pilot for Seamless Bagshuttle Service)

Reporting period: 2016-06-01 to 2016-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The novelty of our innovative baggage delivery service comprises different aspects.

1) We foresee the future business and leisure travel to be seamless, with passengers not carrying any bulky bags anymore and use more low-emission transportation (trains, bike-sharing etc.). Services like Bagshuttle will take care of them seamless: from origin (e.g. home) to its final destination (e.g. hotel, trade-fair) and vice versa.

2) The booking process of our Bagshuttle baggage delivery is adapted to customer needs: very easy for everyone, spontaneously realizable and with a flat pricing. Our responsive website for all devices is offering all of these advantages.

3) We offer an intermodal service: be it you go by airplane, train or bicycle, be it you go on vacation into a hotel, you are on business trip - Bagshuttle is there to provide you with your luggage wherever you want it to be.

4) Bagshuttle brand promise stands for a constant high quality, reliability and quick delivery, wherever you go in the world.

During our feasibility study at Hamburg Airport we wanted to find out if the service is generally requested by travellers with respect to product characteristics, prizing, marketing and partner selection on the basis of in-depth research and analysis of customer feedback and information we gathered on- and off-site.

Prior to the project we embraced the following main user groups:

1) Ecology-minded travellers
They prefer to use low-emission public transportation, bike-sharing etc. Usually, they show a high affinity to new innovative products and technologies, actively using mobile internet and social communities.

2) Business traveller
Arrives in the morning heading for appointments or conferences, but hotel room still not available, expensive taxi detour or storage of baggage, then returning to pickup baggage from storage. Our solution will help companies reduce passive travel time costs (40-80€ per working hour on average plus taxi, storage etc.) and at the same time offer employees convenience while travelling.

3) Leisure city trips
City trips become more and more popular. Arriving early in the morning at the weekend, they want to take advantage of the duration of stay in the best manner. Bagshuttle takes care of their luggage at the airport, sending it directly to their hotel or Airbnb address. While this user group can just travel on, and e.g. go on a sightseeing tour.

4) Elderly or handicapped people and traveller with large or heavy baggage
It goes without saying that elderly or handicapped people and traveller with large or heavy bags need support when they are travelling. They mostly choose a taxi to reach the airport or station. Or they book an expensive baggage door-to-door service which will pick up the bags 2 days before the trip begins. At the Bagshuttle destination (elderly) travellers can go straight to a sightseeing tour investing their travel budget in touristic attractions instead of baggage storage or taxis.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We implemented a test service launch at Hamburg Airport at 6th of June 2016 for a 3 months test period, where customers could drop off their luggage after arrival by plane at our counter, then be able to travel onward bag-free. Bagshuttle service personnel was present at our drop-off point in order to receive the luggage of the customers, take care of it and assist in case of any arising questions. The luggage was then picked up by our partner shipper, and deliverd by a sprinter to its destination. The customer was informed as soon as the luggage had reached its final destination safely and in time.
The sale was supported by advertisements on airport ad boards (e.g. on the airport bus), promotion campaigns, discount promotion sale activities, and accompanying online marketing activities (twitter, Facebook, etc.).

To optimise our service product and processes, we collected the research information in our feasibility pilot in three ways on-site and off-site:

1. By our hostesses at the promotional counters at Hamburg Airport, which talked directly to our test-customers, introduced our booking site and showed the booking process. Daily, a form is filled in with valuable information about customer opinion, especially regarding the booking process, the price and the features of the product and possible spots for improvement.

2. By conducting interviews with potential customers at similiar German airports, explaining the service/product, the pricing, availabilities and conditions. In summary, more than 450 personal interviews have been finalized, with the following demographics: male 49% /female 51%, language 88,5% German, Age: 28,5% up to 30yrs / 48,7% 30-49yrs / 22,9% above 49yrs, 38% business / 62% private.

In general, there is a significant demand on a luggage delivery service like Bagshuttle offers. The interest in booking such a service did not focus only on the above mentioned customer segments, i.e. even standard leisure travels claimed to be willing to use such a service. The popularity ranged from young people (20 or younger) up to seniors (60+), male as well as female interviewee.

In detail, with respect to the first impression, 81.5% of the potential customers stated the first impression was good or very good. The degree of innovation was assessed by 60.1% with extraordinary or very innovative. The probability of booking a Bagshuttle service was stated by 67.3% to be very high or relatively high.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

During this study we focussed on the Inbound service only (Airport to -> destination). The results given from the customer feedbacks and interviews were a high demand for the Outbound service (e.g. pickup from home / hotel -> to airport).
In the future, the baggage onward processing will be dislinked from the travellers’ iternaries. Next to the deliveries from airports to different destinations within a catchment (and vice versa), the next step is that your luggage is picked up at the beginning of your journey (at your home) and the next time you see it is at your travel destination, e.g. your hotel room. This will make travelling much more easy and comfortable. How the luggage is meanwhile transported to its final destination depends on the distance between origin and destination, infrastructure of different means of transport (railway, streets, air freight e.g.) their relative cost position, and the speed of delivery vs. customers expectations. Even a linkage to crowd shipping seems possible in the future, with worldwide increasing interconnection of mobile devices, the development of coordinating apps and the willingness of people to participate in crowd related creation of value.

A family requesting a Bagshuttle

One of our promoters at Terminal 2