Single ticketing system for Europe

TRAVELLING:THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced details of an ambitious plan to make it easier for tourists to travel across Europe with the creation of a unified journey planner to allow people book and travel on all modes of transport across all countries in the EU with a single ticket bought online.

Earlier this week the Commission announced details of a competition aimed at finding the most user-friendly options and it has invited both businesses and the general public to submit ideas.

While the idea of an integrated pan-European ticketing system may seem wildly optimistic for Irish people – we have waited over a decade for such a system to be rolled out covering just three modes of public transport in Dublin (trains, buses and trams) – the EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas believes the Europe-wide system should not be difficult to set up.

“I do not see why there is such a big patchwork of journey planners when there is supposed to be one European market. I want to travel through Europe, switching from air to rail or sea, to urban or road transport with a single ticket planned and bought online. This is why I am launching this challenge today,” Mr Kallas said.

The commissioner pointed out that the technology already exists and added that “we just need to get things started so that millions of Europeans are able to plan their journey with just a few simple clicks”.

He was laying down the gauntlet and said his challenge “for a truly European journey planner” was open to everyone, from companies and organisations to anyone with an interest in travelling.

Mr Kallas said the closing date for applications was September 9th after which the public will be able to vote on the journey planners that have been submitted and are already up and running.

A professional jury will also evaluate ideas for a new multimodal planner. He said the ultimate winners would receive financial aid from the European Commission to promote their ideas.

Details of the challenge are available on eujourneyplanner.eu. The site also features a selection of national journey planners on a clickable map of Europe.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, given its absence of any class of integrated ticketing, Ireland does not feature on the map.