SNCF Réseau plays a serious game

Assistance in the form of digital advice from SQLI & a design by WAX Interactive

As part of the consultation on the Liaisons Nouvelles Ouest Bretagne - Pays de la Loire (LNOBPL: New Connections West Brittany - Loire Valley) project, SNCF Réseau turned to SQLI to develop a serious game. The general public will be able to choose the developments that it prefers and find out about the impact of its choices (financial, environmental, socio-economic and on traffic). It is the first time that a digital channel has been used for a consultation.

A desire for transparency and innovation

Last October SNCF Réseau began a consultation about the future of the Loire valley and Breton railway lines. To inform and question the general public, it relies on an innovative solution: a serious game which makes it possible for each person to put together their own project for the Brittany - Loire Valley rail network with a range of development scenarios.

Thanks to this tool, SNCF Réseau is demonstrating its ability to innovate and involve the general public. Indeed, for the LNOBPL project, which will be completed by 2030, SNCF Réseau encountered difficulties in terms of reaching and involving the population concerned during the public debate in 2014. This game aims to make educational information available to the entire territory concerned, or more than 7 million people.

It enables them to find out about the effects of the various development options, whether they are financial, environmental and socio-economic, or even on the traffic, and form their own opinion.SNCF Réseau is being transparent with this simulator, with no less than 18,000 possible combinations of developments offered to players, summarising 5 years of technical studies.

It also highlights the extent of the work that has been done by SNCF Réseau beforehand, with all the solutions that were studied (by Egis, Systra, Setec and Ingérop) to develop scenarios to the full.

It was SQLI that was chosen by SNCF Réseau to provide Digital advice and WAX Interactive to develop the UX and the design and TRSB DIGIWIN for the technical production.

"SQLI has been our preferred partner for nearly two years in terms of assisting us and advising us on our digital transformation, both in terms of guidance, the design, prototyping and management of SNCF Réseau's digital projects (websites like sncf-reseau.fr, internal collaborative tools and professional tools which make it possible to accelerate the digitisation of work processes)," explains SNCF Réseau's CIO.

A playful and involving simulator

Thanks to the results generated by the game, SNCF Réseau can more easily understand the public's and stakeholders' priorities which can serve as a basis for reflection in terms of future decisions for the Grand Ouest rail network.

A game lasts between 15 and 30 minutes on average and makes it possible to define criteria such as: the journey time, the types of development, the network's capacity which is crucial in terms of the frequency of trains, etc. For optimal ownership, the player is invited to begin the game by adjusting their preferred route. They can then extend their actions to the 6 sectors that can be developed in the Brittany - Loire Valley region.SQLI supervised SNCF Réseau's simulator project for a year.

More specifically:

  • The analysis and confirmation of the project objectives,
  • The definition of targets and different usage situations,
  • The listing and prioritisation of features,
  • Doing pre-zoning,
  • Detailed prototyping of the simulator and drafting of specifications.

WAX Interactive, the SQLI group's digital agency, designed and developed the UX and the design of the simulator as well as the online discussion forum associated with the simulator. The models presented by WAX Interactive won over SNCF Réseau from the very beginning of the project. The also high-quality development was handled by the company TRSB DIGIWIN, in 5 months, with Angular JS technology on Drupal 8. The project was managed using agile methodology, with perfect collaboration and communication between all the teams.

"For several years, SNCF Réseau has applied a consultation and public participation policy to develop projects with a significant impact on the environment or living conditions and because of the sensitivity of the local context. Now we are seeking to develop our practices for informing and consulting the public towards more attractiveness, education and interactivity on our projects, and this happens in particular through digitising our consultation processes for access to as many people as possible," says Anaelle Baes,who is in charge of SNCF Réseau's digital consultation.

Since its launch in December, the public has taken a great interest in the serious game and has naturally adopted it: 2400 games played, 285 scenarios recorded including some which were exported to the forum and others to social networks. The successful combination of advice, UX and technology has made this serious game a success. It encourages SNCF Réseau to repeat the experience for other projects.

Discover the serious game: http://www.lnobpl.fr/simulateur/#/