Draw the best option for urban transport journeys is one of the objectives of the EU-funded group of scientists who is working within the project IN-TIME. The results of this research which are already being tested, could help to reduce congestion and reduce the effects of pollution from urban transport by providing users with information about the best multimodal transportation options.

The new service for urban transport routes planning is the product of the IN-TIME ('Intelligent and efficient travel management for European cities') project, which was funded by the European Commission with 2.9 million euro from the Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT-PSP) of the EU's Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).

The aim of IN-TIME project is to encourage individuals to change the way they travel by providing them with interoperable multimodal Real Time Traffic and Travel Information (RTTI) services. The project team is focusing on three related areas. Business-to-business services will provide European Traffic Information Services Providers (TISPs) with access to regional traffic and travel data.

This in turn will enable the TISPs to provide users with RTTI services via their mobile phones or navigational devices. Information provided via these services should incite users to choose the best route, taking into account energy consumption, cost and congestion for example. The system will access a wide range of information, including public transport timetables, real time public transport information and news on accidents, road works and deviations, among other things.

The team also hopes that if the pilots are successful, the project will give the economy a boost by cutting companies' delivery and distribution costs, creating a number of jobs in the telematics industry, and highlighting Europe's place as a world leader in the area of intermodal traveller information systems. This last point is helped by the fact that many of the project partners come from the industry and so are in a position to rapidly transform the product outcomes into new products and services.

The IN-TIME project, which has 21 partners in 8 countries (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Romania) started in 2009 and is scheduled to end in 2012.