OPTTIMAL:OpenPlatform TravelTechnology Integrating Multimodal Available Links

The past two decades have seen seismic change in how people plan and books travel. The three drivers of this are; 1. Internet information – access ease and information 2. Low Cost Travel Airlines - 3. Government focus on integrated public transport, coupled with improved service and growth in use of trains trams and buses. The net results are that people can plan travel by transport type and in some instances get details of multimodal options e.g. walk, bus train, bus walk. However the market failing is the absence of joined up travel planning and the ability to book and communicate regarding an entire multi point and multi modal journey. Other failings are; 1. Limitation of search methods that do not produce full options, 2. Travellers who are poorly informed of alternative options as they work on preconceived ideas of what their journey should look like, and 3. Search methods that respond to traveller enquiries with no thought to options of peak and non-peak time, that do not see full end to end timing implications e.g. travel by train to a London Airport may cost more than the flight. Therefore there is an urgent demand for a step change in technology that will allow passenger to construct and maintain reasonably complex itineraries, avoiding the pitfalls of connecting disparate bookings (let alone the shifting circumstances issues that are encountered once the journey begins) This Project - "OPTTIMAL" - 'Open Platform Travel Technology Integrating Multimodal Available Links' will in Phase 1 produce a complete and very comprehensive Business and Technical Project Plan. This will lead to Phase 2 comprising the development and implementation of an open platform which allows vendors to coexist equally and travellers to construct and maintain itineraries across complex (but common) itineraries. This will include the use of a vast quantity of travel related data produced from multiple sources (both open and commercial). The end platform - OPTTIMAL - will scale to provide real-time data in a helpful and insightful manner. The technical challenge will be the efficient embedding of third party (vendor) connections with sufficient performance and exposed functionality to give customers confidence to book, and then to provide the vendors with an enhanced understanding of customer interactions, leading to improvements in the acquisition/retention of customers and increased revenue per customer. Air Black Box Company Limited have a history of developing and deploying advances in travel software and systems and, critically, reaching and influencing players in the key channels who can integrate and adopt. OPTTIMAL offers a global business opportunity and has a clear fit with the requirements of UK internal and outbound travel, as well as for inbound tourism.