European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas is challenging industry to come up with a truly European journey planner that includes all countries and transport modes. The Commissioner stressed that while we are supposed being in one European market, there is too many journey planners. He also added that although the technology already exists, travellers still have to switch tickets from air to rail or sea, to urban or road transport.

More than 100 journey planners already exist and there is not one yet that allows users to find information or book a ticket for a journey within Europe regardless of the number of countries or transport modes involved. This is the reason why the Commission has launched this challenge at a conference on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). The Commissioner Kallas has also presented at the conference the challenge webpage featuring, in addition to all details on the challenge, a selection of existing national journey planners on a clickable map of Europe.

The challenge for a truly European journey planner is open to everyone, from companies and organisations to anyone with an interest in travelling. The public will be able to vote on the journey planners that have been submitted and are already up and running, while a professional jury will evaluate ideas for a new multimodal planner. The winners will receive help from the European Commission to promote their ideas.

People have until 9 September 2011 to submit their ideas. From 15 October to 15 November 2011 all operational planners that have been submitted and preselected will be put to a public vote on the website of the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport and then, a professional jury will elect the winner.