Compare flights vs. rail for greener travel choices

At Spotnana, it’s our goal to provide travelers and the businesses we serve with the tools and data to make more sustainable travel choices. 

For some time we’ve offered the ability to measure the carbon emissions produced by your business travel program, the capacity to offset those emissions, and a wide variety of climate-friendly travel options.

Today, we are expanding our commitment to providing travelers with responsible travel alternatives by making it easy for users to view options for taking the train instead of flying by plane. 

Now when a traveler performs an air search on Spotnana’s Travel-as-a-Service platform for a domestic trip that is less than five hours train time, we provide travelers the option to view train travel alternatives when we find a viable rail itinerary. The traveler can choose to view the rail options and book their rail trip, or if they choose not to travel by train, they can quickly switch back to see their air results. Throughout the traveler’s search, where available, we provide them with carbon emissions data to help inform their booking decision. 

When traveling shorter distances, taking the train can be a more economical, pleasant, and sustainable option. Employees can comfortably work on the train and avoid waiting in long airport lines. On average, train travel is 12 times more energy efficient than air travel. Traveling by train instead of flying has also become more pertinent than ever in Europe, where governments are enacting legislation to restrict domestic flights and liberalizing European cross-border rail networks.

While there is a desire to travel by train instead of flying, travelers have historically faced the challenge of comparing air travel routes with rail travel routes in their travel booking system. Now Spotnana is changing that – making it easy for travelers to compare air and rail travel in one place. 

Users are presented with the option to pick a more sustainable choice if available.

Whether you’re traveling in the U.S. or Europe, we’ve got you covered. To make this possible, we mapped all rail stations to airports, allowing our platform to display relevant train alternatives based on your chosen city pair.

For example, if you want to fly out of John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), Spotnana’s platform searches rail options from New York Penn Station to Washington Union Station. Similarly, if you want to fly from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to Edinburgh Airport (EDI), the platform will do a rail search from London to Edinburgh Waverley. 

At Spotnana, we’re passionate about helping companies and business travelers make greener travel decisions by providing travelers with eco-friendly travel options and enabling travel managers to incorporate sustainability goals into their travel policies.

To discover how Spotnana can support your sustainability goals, schedule a demo today.