2. Vision

A traveller in Europe in the future will have access to specialised or integrated services providers for planning, organising and facilitating any journey for which he will find information and other services before, during and after his journey.

From a portable unit or mobile phone, the PC at home, in the office or in public places, from kiosks, home TV or an unit fitted in a car or other vehicle, the user will be able to access a set of service providers and to choose the most suitable service.

Technology advances will allow information systems to be fully transparent and accessible without practical difficulties. Language will not be a problem as all information and documentation would be provided in the selected basic language as well as the language of the countries visited. Speech recognition and output will compensate the limitations of the screen displays particularly for smart-phone devices. The transportability of the service between different devices will essential for the provision of a fully satisfactory service. Access to such services will not be tied to a specific equipment. In addition, the human machine interface will be harmonised between different devices for the same service, so as to have the same look and feel on different media and a device independent service.

The traveller will be able to find the information required about schedules, airlines/coaches and train companies, tolls, routes etc, so that he/she can plan, book, buy tickets for a visit, business, personal or shopping trip, short break or holiday.

It will be possible to select a route, mode(s) of travel, date and time according to a number of criteria such as time, cost, and convenience. All modes of transport selected, as well as all the types of activity possible at the destination and any constraints would be taken into account. Reservations, tickets and information about how much and when to pay will be made available at home, in the office or at another chosen location.

During the journey, the provider would be able to supply the traveller with further information about necessary changes in modes, additional transport facilities, conditions of travel, assistance in case of emergency or other services available at interchange points. Location-based opportunities will also take into account the trip context (mode of transport, trip plan). This will be particularly valuable for business travel or travel in unfamiliar environments, whether cities breaks, holiday trips or motorway journeys. Search for the location of selected activities and conditions of access would also be available during the journey.

The cost of providing these services would be totally or partially paid by the customer/traveller. Some providers would be sponsored by the European Community, the European regions/cities or by private ventures promoting free mobility across Europe. Some providers would be operating for segments of the market willing to pay for an added value service which will save money and time for a journey and provide any assistance required on a person-to-person basis.

The choice of provider will be dictated by the type of service required and the competition environment in which the specialised or integrated provider operates. For example, some will offer services for niche markets, some for national travellers, some for European or non European business travellers, others for short breaks in European cities or regions.

A traveller in Europe will be able to choose the level of service, ranging from simple information and ticketing to tailor made packages. These services will be especially useful for car and multimodal journeys, such as tourism involving several European countries.

Travellers, especially frequent ones, who have subscribed to specific services could have their profiles stored and updated in data bases accessible to providers (of those services) in order to improve the personalisation of offers and services. Creation and maintenance of profile records, while transparent to the customer, will take into account all required guarantees of privacy and confidentiality.

Linked to the customer profile, loyalty schemes will partially offset the cost of using providers' services, by offering discounts or better conditions to registered users of travel operators (hotels, restaurants, transport operators etc), through loyalty chain organisations. Loyalty cards or other mechanisms will be used for this purpose. Customers, who in the future will have become increasingly expert in using "net" technologies, will locate these services by "surfing" the net, finding the most appropriate transport chain.

The use of contact and contactless smart cards will ease and improve the provision of personal travel services. Several types of service for the same purpose, such as multimodal trips and entry to sports or cultural events will be booked remotely and paid for using the same multifunctional card. Completing a transaction, passing a ticket gate or making a specific request, location-based applications will allow the traveller to receive information while travelling. This will include information on service disruptions, cultural events, commercial initiatives and real-time route optimisation for the chosen destination. The store of purchases on the card will allow the triggering of loyalty schemes.

Due to the market structure and complexity of the task of collating "intermodal transport information", new types of operator - Value Added Service Provider (VASP) or Transport Information Brokers (TIB) - will emerge. Those operators will, in principle, differ from transport operators. The "value added" is in fact associated with the capacity to offer services which are transversal to modes and operators. These new operators will need to have access to Telematics Platforms responsible for collecting and managing the information from data providers, i.e. non homogeneous information with different reference networks, including raw data on the local traffic and travel conditions.

In order for the vision depicted above to become a reality, it will be necessary to move towards a model similar to that shown in the Figure 1.

In the model above, the Telematics Platform, VASP (Value Added Service Providers) and TIB (Transport Information Brokers) provide the bridge required between different market segments and Transport Service Providers. They could be seen as an adaptation to the new needs of "travel agents" and provide services through existing systems. Services would need to be relevant and up to date to satisfy the traveller's requirements at a given time.

Details on the telematics platform are given in the Appendix.