Bob Collier, chief executive of Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, has called on the Scottish Government to include Aberdeen in the pilot scheme testing WiFi connection on railway services.
His comments come after the Government's announcement last week of an extra £250,000 grant to ScotRail to trial two systems of WiFi on the Glasgow-Edinburgh services.
The trial will start in June, but only four out of the 47 Turbostar 170s used on the 50-minute route will be WiFi-enabled. According to ScotRail, one in 10 trains on the route will have WiFi during the trial, and "very occasionally" one of the trains would be used on the Aberdeen route.
Collier said: "The scheme is welcome, but overdue. We should hope it would be extended to other parts of the network as soon as possible – preferably before the new 2014 rail franchise is awarded."
ScotRail currently offers no WiFi network on its two-and-a-half hour journey between Aberdeen and Glasgow, a longstanding bugbear among the Aberdeen business community.
A full roll-out of the service, including the Aberdeen route, is not being considered until well into the life of the next franchise agreement, which means that north and south-bound travellers currently have no prospect of onboard WiFi for the next three to four years, despite its already being available on Virgin and East Coast services, and many longer-distance and airport buses.
The Sunday Herald has campaigned for the introduction of onboard WiFi after Transport Scotland failed to impose obligations on the ScotRail franchisee when it renewed its contract with Aberdeen-based FirstGroup in April 2008.
Collier said: "One of the benefits for a business passenger travelling by train is that they should be able to spend their hours productively working. At the moment, they are limited in what they can do."
Derrick McCourt, Microsoft's regional director in Scotland and Wales, supported the Aberdeen Chamber's call for the faster introduction of WiFi on trains. "We have a large number of staff, customers and partners who spend a lot of time travelling up and down the country on a near-daily basis. WiFi should be introduced as soon as possible, so that our time is spent efficiently," he said.
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