Your Ideas: FAQs

What is Your Ideas?

At First Capital Connect: Your Ideas, you can suggest your own ideas, comment on other people's ideas and vote for those you think deserve to be introduced.

Through sharing and discussing ideas, we want to find the best ways to improve our trains, our stations, our communication and our relationships with the community.

I have a question to ask…

Your Ideas is the best place to share your ideas of what can be done – in practical terms – to improve your journeys.

If you have a question, you can contact us on this form, or through our Twitter account - @FirstCC. If you’re unhappy about something, please do let us know through our Contact Us form.

What happens to my idea?

Other passengers are able to vote and comment on your idea. If they like it, they can vote for it. If they have a question, or some feedback, maybe they’ll leave a comment.

Then your ideas are discussed by the senior management team at FCC – the team in charge of operations, planning, communications and technology. They’ll work out which ideas can be investigated, which can be implemented right away, and which ones may unfortunately not be possible.

How will you decide which ideas to move forward with?

While we'd love to implement every idea, the ideas most likely to be considered are those that explain how something will work.

The best ideas are ones that don’t just identify an area that needs improvement, but suggest practical ways to make changes. So well thought-out ideas, along with those that have received the most votes, are more likely to be reviewed by the FCC team.

Sadly, a great idea, with many votes, may still be hard to implement. Technical, regulatory or cost constraints may unfortunately get in our way. We'll still be grateful for your input, and we'll do our best to explain the challenges we face. If your idea doesn't make it, try another one!

How does the voting work?

If you’ve registered on Your Ideas, you can vote for other people’s ideas, helping us to identify the most popular ones. Give one, two or three votes, depending on how much you like the idea.

You only have a limited amount of votes, so choose wisely when you’re adding support to others’ ideas. If an idea you’ve voted for is later ‘closed’ (because it’s been completed or declined), your votes are returned to you to use again.

I want to know what First Capital Connect thinks of my idea…

We’ll comment on some of the ideas, but we may not be able to respond to every idea you post.

You can check the status of each idea, to see if it’s under review, planned, or declined. If an idea makes it through to completion, we will provide further information, and mark it as ‘completed’.

Is this private?

Your Ideas is a public forum. Ideas and comments are openly viewable. So is the name you choose when you register.

We may like to tell people about the great ideas you're suggesting, so your idea, along with your username, may appear elsewhere online, or on printed materials like posters or leaflets. Please remember this when selecting your name and writing your ideas.

Are there any rules for using the Your Ideas site?

You can read the full Terms of Service here.

We expect some people to have firm opinions and strong ideas. But we ask everyone using Your Ideas to remain polite and civil. If you disagree with each other, or with us, that’s fine, but please stay respectful, so we can have a meaningful discussion.

Posts that are inappropriate will be removed from the site and users that repeatedly post inappropriate content will be asked not to post at all.

How long will Your Ideas be available?

We've initially launched the Your Ideas site as a trial scheme. But if our passengers value the opportunity to share their ideas, it may continue indefinitely. We may develop the site and add further features, so keep looking back, or follow our @FirstCC Twitter feed to stay updated.

Your Ideas website