Deutsche Bahn
Passengers to be informed by a unique, recognizable DB voice.
The DB's custom voice will homogeneously inform passengers in real time through a unique voice experience.
DB is modernizing its full ITS system to ensure passengers the most consistent, reliable and optimal information, including a digital voice.
Goal
DB Station&Service AG, a subsidiary of DB, one of the largest providers of passenger & freight transport services in Europe, has selected Acapela Group, the voice solutions expert, to create its brand new German digital voice.
DB Station&Service AG is responsible for operating over 5,400 train stations on the German railway network.
At DB, railway stations are seen as the gateway to the full rail system and thus, as places where quality, customer experience and satisfaction are decisive. Inconsistent or outdated information quickly leads to frustration and has unpleasant consequences for the passengers. DB is modernizing the full ITS system to ensure passengers the most consistent, reliable and optimal information.
The new system includes a new generation of digital displays in different formats and enriched content as well as a new digital custom voice for the announcements in stations, that will provide relevant information with a smart voice.
Implementation
The digital voice has been created with ‘Acapela Voice Factory’, the Acapela solution for custom voice creation, and will inform DB passengers in train stations through a unique, recognizable DB voice.
The solution enables companies to perform their voice branding through any audio touch point with a very natural and pleasant digital voice.
Custom voices allow companies and organizations to be more relevant in their conversations with the targeted audience while providing efficient real time information, which is key for public transport. Custom voices add an audio brand identity, offer outstanding conversational user experience and increase customer satisfaction and confidence.
Results
A DB custom voice used in all train stations: 21 million travelers and station visitors will hear the digital DB’s voice each day.
“The voice is the acoustic business card of DB in all railway stations. With the new voice technology from Acapela, we will provide station visitors and passengers advanced real time information », explains Daniel Labahn, Head of Travel Information for the Future of DB Station & Service AG. “Especially in cases of disruption, clear announcements are essential for good passenger information. This has a direct impact on customer satisfaction, which is a priority for us in the coming years.”
Nürnberg Hauptbahnhof – Copyright: Deutsche Bahn AG / Pablo Castagnola
‘We are very proud to accompany DB in their voice project for advanced Passenger Information. We are convinced that, as voice-first interfaces are entering our daily lives, it is the right moment for companies to seize the opportunity to go for their own voice persona. Digital voice not only delivers passengers with real-time audio information, which is mandatory to users, but also provides an advanced comfortable user experience and contributes to brand identity. Voice matters and Acapela is well known for its expertise in creating custom voices for public transport activities’ comments Remy Cadic, Acapela Group CEO.
Acapela’s recent innovation based on Deep Neural Networks (DNN) – Neural TTS – is opening up new opportunities for the creation of personalized digital voices, adapted to the environment in which the voice is used.
In addition to regular custom voice development at Acapela, transport-domain recordings were made using Acapela’s dedicated tools to perfectly reproduce station names and passenger information for an enhanced user-experience.
Acapela voices will deliver real time passenger information to both German-speaking and international travellers, with the custom voice for the German users as well Acapela’s standard voices in English and French for the non-German-speaking users.
Read the Press Release
About DB
The Deutsche Bahn Group is an international provider of mobility and logistics services operating in over 130 countries worldwide. DB employs more than 310,000 employees with almost 40 percent of them outside Germany,
The DB Group transports more than 12 million passengers per day across Europe (including Germany) in its trains and buses. In the area of transport and logistics, around 300 million tonnes of goods per year are freighted by rail and around 100 million by road through the European network. Around 1.3 million tonnes of air freight and around 2.1 million TEU of sea freight are handled in the global networks.
DB custom voice by Acapela
5400 railway stations
21 million travelers and station visitors each day.
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