Turning Smartphones into an Instrument of the Service Relationship?

In 2013, RAIL IDF, a public transport operator in Île-de-France (Paris and surrounding areas), organized an innovation competition titled “Hackcess RAIL IDF”. During this competition, a planned application to connect disabled users to the railway’s agents was proposed. Based on the author’s observation of the development of this application, the article examines accessibility models and the service designs that emerged through the project managers’ trade-offs. The production of a connected service aimed at providing accessibility to disabled persons is thus seen as evidence of a deeper transformation of the organization of mobility at RAIL IDF. Three inter-related approaches to services are identified, which the project managers sought to articulate: technological, social, and managerial. Ultimately, the tensions between these three approaches limited the scope of the application, yet also contributed to making smartphones the instrument of RAIL IDF’s customer service relations.