Thrust Carbon is claiming success with a pilot of its EngageAI, which nudges travellers to make more sustainable booking decisions.
The pilot with an unnamed global consultancy saw 14% of nudged travellers cancel out-of-policy Amsterdam to London flights and switch to rail.
According to Thrust Carbon’s data, this cut each traveller’s journey emissions by 91% and unlocked up to two hours of productive working time.
The organisation’s travel policy mandates rail for journeys under four hours, which includes Amsterdam to London – one of the most common flight routes for its travellers.
But with nearly half (46%) of travellers never checking their policy before booking, the consultancy used EngageAI to identify out of policy bookings and then send an alert urging travellers who had already booked a flight to cancel it and rebook by rail.
- Thrust Carbon said the messages worked for a number of reasons:
They named the traveller’s actual booking, not a generic policy reminder. - Eurostar was framed as city centre to city centre, about an hour longer door to door, but with two hours more productive working time.
- Messages landed in the traveller’s inbox and linked straight to where they could change the booking.
- “Cancelling a trip you’ve already booked is about as high-friction as a travel decision gets,” said Kit Aspen, CEO of Thrust Carbon.
“EngageAI removes this friction by making it simple for the travellers, and leading with the benefits of switching…for them, not the company.”
Following the pilot, the global consultancy is extending the notifications to more of its most common routes in Europe and to the West Coast Corridor in the US.
