In 2017, SNCF recorded 10 000 forbidden intrusions on railways, resulting in 55 deaths (and 34 serious injuries) vs 47 deaths in 2016. A growing phenomenon in which teeenagers are more and more involved due to dangerous behavior (trainsurfing or break onto railways).

SNCF Réseau decided to launch a prevention campaign to inflect youth behavior. The objectives:

- Prevent new accidents on railways.

- Share the key message “never break onto railways”.

- Raise young people consciousness about their risky behavior.

- Dispel the notion train drivers are responsible for such accidents.

02:38. Never become a train-drive nightmare.

The cornerstone of the campaign is a VR film based on the nightmare relived by a train-driver every night, inspired by traumatic shock of witnessing an accident.

To meet our target audience, the experience is shown in a dedicated space: the actual driver's room, rebuilt in a truck. It will visit high schools over 2 years to educate them about risks on railways.

The experience is also available on a website in VR or in 360°. The visitor can explore the train-driver's room, the VR experience, and several other elements: interviews (psychologist, train driver, SNCF security head), recording of the accident witness and preventive messages…

In order to lead teenagers on the website, a media campaign is implemented as if the movie was a cinema horror film: different trailers and fake cinema posters are published on social media.

The audience was clearly identified: French teenagers under 18 years old are most often involved in railway accidents (minors are 71% of electrocution victims). It’s a generation on which classical and serious preventive messages aren’t effective and who is hard to scare. Most of all, it’s a generation seeking thrills.

So how do you make young people realize they put their life in danger when it’s actually what they are looking for? It’s surely not by making them feel guilty. Our answer: put them in the shoes of the accident’s witness. In order to touch them –70% are using ad blockers – the campaign had to reach them in an innovative way.

With new technology, like VR, and where they less expected it: in their own high school.

The campaign started with a tour in high schools all over the country and launch of the VR/360° website mid-March. Flyers and posters were distributed in high schools ahead of the tour schedule over 2 years, during which the truck will travel all over France making it a national, long-term campaign. Truck will also travel to summer festivals to target youth during the holiday. A digital campaign will follow in September for back to school, pushing the website alongside the on-site activations with the truck.

• Press coverage – with no media investment: 18 articles, 6 radio programs and 1 TV show (LCI - major French information channel).

• Survey completed by students after experiencing the VR movie in the truck:

91% enjoyed the movie. The most used adjectives to qualify the film by students are “effective”, “outstanding”, “surprising”.

93% of them enjoyed the use of VR to showcase the preventive idea.

The campaign message “Never become a train-drive nightmare” was loved by 90% of students.

91% agreed, the film make them realize the rails’ risks.

81% want to talk about this with relatives.

• Website:

More than 327.000 single connections were registered in a month, with an average of 4.30 minutes spent on it, and 72% of our demographic reach were youth of 14 to 25 years old.