Rail Passenger Experience Report: Onboard Entertainment, Wi-Fi and Digital Service Trends
This report maps how rail passengers spend their time onboard: content consumption, Wi-Fi usage, digital service expectations and the infotainment levers that drive both passenger satisfaction and ancillary revenue for train operators.
Key findings
- 70% of train passengers on equipped routes experience regular Wi-Fi dropouts. (Ipsos and Evo-rail) Reliability — not availability — is the primary driver of low onboard platform engagement.
- Beyond two hours, onboard platform adoption shifts from optional to primary entertainment source. Journey length is the first filter for content investment decisions. (Moment Rail Report)
- Millennials are the dominant train passenger demographic — and they benchmark onboard digital services against their daily apps. Streaming, personalized content, and e-commerce are baseline expectations, not premium ones. (Moment Rail Report)
- Rail passenger traffic grows 11% between 2023 and 2028. Higher volumes amplify both the commercial opportunity and the NPS cost of a poor digital experience. (Moment Rail Report)
- Operators treating the onboard portal as a closed entertainment environment are leaving destination services, retail partnerships, and advertising revenue unrealized. Infotainment is evolving into a full commercial platform. (Moment Rail Report)
Rail passenger volumes are growing. Digital expectations are growing faster.
Global rail ridership is projected to reach 1.08 billion passengers in 2028, up from 970 million in 2023 (International Union of Railways, UIC). Worldwide passenger kilometers already exceed 3.7 trillion in 2025. Rail onboard infotainment and connectivity are no longer optional infrastructure: they are the baseline passengers bring from their daily connected environments. This growth is not evenly distributed across age groups: passengers aged 25 to 34 represent the largest segment onboard, followed by the 35 to 49 bracket. Rail is a young, connected market and the infrastructure investment backing it reflects that shift.
The European Union’s €750 billion Green Deal prioritizes sustainable transport. The US has committed $66 billion to rail improvements, including Amtrak expansion. China operates over 45,000 km of high-speed rail, with plans to reach 70,000 km by 2035. Night trains are seeing a parallel revival: SNCF’s Intercités night services carried 770,000 passengers in 2023, up 11% year-on-year. Longer journeys mean more time onboard and more opportunity to deliver value.
What rail passengers do onboard
On an average train trip of approximately four hours equipped with an infotainment platform, passengers generate an average session time of 48 minutes. Those 48 minutes are active: content consumption, service browsing, connectivity use.
71% of passengers use smartphones onboard. 29% use tablets or laptops. The platform data covers engagement across video, press, games and audio, with consumption patterns that shift significantly by passenger profile, age group and journey type. Streaming on personal devices accounts for just 3% of activity, a signal that passengers are not satisfied with their own mobile data connection and are open to operator-provided alternatives when the quality is there.
The full content consumption breakdown by format, genre and passenger profile is in the downloadable report. For operators building or refreshing their onboard entertainment platform, the data maps directly to catalog and editorial decisions. For the 2025 session-level data across Moment’s European rail network, see the Rail Onboard Entertainment Trends 2026 report.
Passenger Wi-Fi on trains: the gap between expectation and delivery
Passenger Wi-Fi on a train is not generated onboard. It is relayed from outside networks to the train, then shared across every connected device. When that outside link weakens, every passenger feels it at once. 70% of passengers report experiencing regular connectivity interruptions during their journey (Ipsos and Evo-rail). Operators are judged on reliability, not availability.
How Wi-Fi reaches a moving train
Most onboard Wi-Fi runs on mobile networks along the track. A rooftop antenna connects to 4G and 5G cells. An onboard router combines several mobile connections, often from different carriers, into a single link. Where mobile coverage is thin, some operators add low Earth orbit satellite capacity. LEO satellites are changing train internet, and they are often combined with cellular rather than used alone. The onboard network then redistributes this bandwidth to passenger devices.
Where the connection breaks
Dropouts follow the route, not chance.
- Tunnels and cuttings. Rock and concrete block both mobile and satellite signals. Without track-side coverage, the link stays down until the train exits.
- Cell handovers. A train at speed switches between mobile cells constantly. Each handover is a point where sessions can stall or reset.
- Rural gaps. Mobile networks follow population density. Long stretches between towns often have weak or no coverage.
- Peak load. Bandwidth is shared. In a full train, every device draws on the same link, and video streaming crowds out everything else.
Network quality also shifts at national borders, as our analysis of why train Wi-Fi quality changes across countries shows.
What operators control onboard
Operators cannot build mobile coverage along the track. They can decide what still works when the link drops.
- Content hosted on the train. Films, press and podcasts stored on an onboard server play without any outside connection. Tunnels stop affecting the entertainment offer.
- Access and passenger information. A Wi-Fi portal manages who connects and how. It can also tell passengers about coverage gaps on the route.
- Traffic prioritisation. Rules on the onboard network can cap streaming at peak times. Bandwidth is kept for messaging, email and booking services.
OUIGO, SNCF's low-cost brand, runs both layers through one onboard portal. Since July 2020, passengers have used their own devices to reach two paid services: OUIFI for internet access and OUIFUN for an entertainment catalogue. Read the OUIGO case study.
From infotainment to ancillary revenue
The major European rail operators already deploy infotainment platforms. TGV inoui offers video, games, audio and press for Business Premier travelers. OUIGO sells a premium entertainment tier at €3. The model is proven across major European networks. For operators without a platform, the question is no longer whether to invest but how to structure the revenue model.
The onboard food and beverage market is projected to grow from $9.96 billion in 2023 to $12.5 billion by 2032 (Market Research Future), driven partly by digital ordering integrated into infotainment platforms. Beyond F&B, operators can layer destination services directly into the passenger journey: hotel reservations, museum tickets, event access, car rentals. The platform becomes a commercial channel that extends beyond the train itself.
Like airlines, rail operators can tie ancillary purchases to loyalty programs, creating a recurring revenue relationship with frequent travelers. The Mood platform supports this structure: entertainment, Wi-Fi access, retail and loyalty integration in a single operator-controlled environment. For operators looking at the broader rail passenger experience, the revenue framework and the operator-by-operator competitive breakdown are in the full PDF.
"Understand your audience first. Content must reflect Gen Z’s habits, family needs, and business travelers’ expectations."
Rail operator strategy: content, connectivity and revenue
Three areas determine whether an operator captures the value of onboard time or leaves it behind.
Content strategy: a single catalog does not serve a Gen Z passenger and a business traveler equally. Segmented editorial approaches drive both satisfaction scores and session length. The genre and demographic data to build that segmentation is in the report.
Connectivity quality: passengers who experience interruptions do not reduce their expectations. They reduce their rating of the operator. Wi-Fi reliability determines operator ratings, not just network KPIs.
Ancillary revenue architecture: destination services, digital F&B ordering and loyalty-linked purchases are deployable today. The operators generating revenue beyond the ticket price have built structured commercial touchpoints into the journey. The report maps how.
This infographic report is used by passenger experience teams and digital leads at rail operators to benchmark their onboard offer. It covers genre-level content data, a demographic breakdown by passenger profile and a competitive analysis of European operator platforms. Free download.
Frequently asked questions
What is the ROI case for an onboard infotainment platform for train operators?
ROI comes from three sources simultaneously: NPS improvement on equipped routes (which correlates directly with repurchase rate), ancillary revenue from food ordering and digital retail, and advertising and partnership revenue from the onboard audience. The commercial window is determined by journey length — routes over two hours generate significantly more platform engagement and purchasing activity than short-haul routes. Operators who model ROI only on entertainment miss the ancillary and advertising revenue that makes the investment self-funding at scale.
How does Wi-Fi reliability affect passenger satisfaction on trains?
It is the most direct NPS lever in the digital cabin. Passengers who experience connectivity dropouts rate the overall journey lower regardless of seat comfort, punctuality, or content quality. 70% of train passengers on equipped routes experience regular dropouts — meaning the majority of the potential NPS benefit from connectivity investment is currently being offset by reliability failures. For operators benchmarking against other transport modes, reliable Wi-Fi is the baseline expectation, not a differentiator.
What content strategy works best for train passengers?
Route-level personalization outperforms a single catalogue for all lines. The dominant passenger profile varies by route — Millennials, business travelers, families — and content performance reflects that directly. Video leads engagement on longer routes; press and podcasts index higher for business travel corridors. Seasonal adjustments matter: lighter entertainment and short-form content outperform on holiday routes. Operators who treat their content catalogue as static are underperforming operators who update and curate by route and season.
How is Wi-Fi delivered on a moving train?
Train Wi-Fi is relayed from outside networks, mainly mobile and sometimes satellite. A rooftop antenna connects to 4G and 5G cells along the track, and an onboard router combines several mobile connections into one link. Yes, some trains also use satellite: low Earth orbit capacity can cover stretches without mobile signal. Satellite is often combined with cellular rather than used alone. The onboard network then shares this bandwidth across all connected passenger devices.
Why does train Wi-Fi drop out?
Train Wi-Fi drops out wherever the outside link fails. Tunnels and deep cuttings block mobile and satellite signals. At speed, a train constantly switches between mobile cells, and each handover can stall a session. Rural stretches often have weak or no mobile coverage. In full trains, every device shares the same link, so speeds fall at peak times.
What can rail operators improve onboard when the connection drops?
Operators cannot control mobile coverage along the track, but they control what happens onboard. Content stored on an onboard server, such as films, press and podcasts, keeps playing without an outside connection. Traffic prioritisation can limit streaming at peak times and protect bandwidth for messaging and email. An onboard portal manages access and can tell passengers about coverage gaps ahead. These levers improve the experience without replacing the connectivity system.
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