Presently, people travelling internationally through Eurostar crossing UK, had to buy Eurostar tickets on their website and UK domestic tickets on a different website. Now, thanks to Fujitsu, Eurostar tickets for international and domestic journeys can be bought on the Eurostar’s website and also on seven train operator’s systems in the UK.

So, in essence, travellers plying from France, Italy or any other European destination can buy all their tickets together as one fare on Eurostar.com.

The different rail operator’s networks that are integrated are Chiltern Railways, East Midlands Trains, First Capital Connect, Hull Trains, London Midland, National Express East Coast and Virgin Trains.

Before this year ends, Fujitsu plans on extending the integration to several smaller UK cities with bigger cities like London and have through-fares to the rest of Europe.

Jamel Chandoul, head of distribution and commercial systems, Eurostar said: “This is one of a number of key customer service initiatives designed to make the whole travelling experience for passengers as easy as possible. With this new ticketing system many travellers can now book their entire journey from their local mainline station to Continental Europe through one joined-up service – making their Eurostar experience even better.”

This linkage is a welcome change for many of those travelling into UK through Eurostar from other European states. They are guaranteed on connections between different train networks and need not face any ambiguity in train travel.

via Press Release

Geograph is a project aimed at covering the entire British Isles in digital images. It plans on geotagging the UK and Ireland with digital photographs taken and contributed by travellers and amateur photographers. The project has started accepting images and a whopping response greeted it with thousands of pictures.

What geotagging does is marry the art of photography with the precise science of digital cartography. In practical terms, all this really means is stamping digital images with the same grid references used by mapmakers, making them easy for others to locate on the internet.

This project will ensure that every centimeter of UK and Ireland are captured on images and placed on the map. It means that every street, traffic lights, museums, castles and minute details are available for viewing.

So, geograph is reaching out to those with high resolution cameras to take pictures of places in the UK and Ireland and upload them in the appropriate grid on the website.

So, when the project is complete, visitors can zoom in on the place of interest and view the pictures instead of just knowing the location and other non-imagery details. Neat idea!

About Geograph: The Geograph British Isles project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and you can be part of it.

via Guardian

A new travel website combining the strengths of YouTube and Facebook has been launched. Rtravel.com is a UK based website which is not affiliated with any travel agency or related organisations.

The concept is not original but simple. Travellers around the world who capture photos and travel videos and are encouraged to upload them on this website. Other members would be able to view the uploaded media and comment on the same; and thereby communicate, thus making friends. Blogging feature is available as well.

Videos are categorised logically as sightseeing places, wildlife, people and crazy stuff among others. If helps onlookers find the kind of video they are looking for.

A good thing about Rtravel is the preference for amateur videos over professional ones. This move would definitely encourage more travellers to shoot and upload their experiences.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m a believer that technology (particularly where travel and Web 2.0 meet) should serve us and not the over way around. And so when it comes to travel technology it too should improve our lives and not distract us by being yet another thing needing set-up, with yet more buttons to press and something else that needs updating. And so enters Facebook.

Thankfully there is a slew of travel related apps for Facebook. Most travel related Facebook apps are just for fun, some are just for show and some (can you believe it?) are useful. Most travel apps on Facebook are based around the simple concept of logging your travels to countries and cities where you have lived, traveled to or want to visit. Here are 10 of the best travel applications for your Facebook profile:

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UK Place Finder is a piece of software written for satellite navigation systems and has indexed several places of interests for people to search on the fly. There are around 100 categories of places to choose from like petrol stations, super markets, golf clubs and so on.

Thousands of places in and around UK are preloaded with their addresses mapped with their coordinates. Suppose you are driving in an unfamiliar neighbourhood and would like to find an Italian restaurant, just key in the name of a popular Italian joint and the sat-nav system should be able to locate it for you in matter of seconds, and guide you from your present location to the restaurant.

Included in UK PlaceFinder are all the major brands you would expect for Supermarkets, Hotels, Restaurants, Sports Venues, Petrol Stations, Motorway Services, Cafes, Cinemas, Attractions, High Street stores, Department Stores, Clothes Shops, DIY shops, Pubs and Clubs, Gyms and other large retailers. Added to this are also the more hard to find locations such as Car Parks, Congestion Zones, London Underground Stations, Blue Flag Beaches, Hairdressers, Builder and Plumbing Merchants, Camera Shops, National Trust Sites, Industrial Estates, Shopping Centres and Retail Parks.

UK Place Finder software is available for download or on a CD for a price of £13. The price is reasonable for the service it offers and moreover it’s one time expenditure.

via Press Release

In a bid to reduce the boarding time for passengers, Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) has provided a self printable boarding passes for passengers. So, in effect, passengers can print their boarding passes at home and head over to airports and probably run straight through the check-in door. This service was piloted and successfully implemented in Scandinavia before implementing it in UK.

The boarding passes are unique to each customer as they contain a barcode that contains information/ID related to the customer. The airport security can validate the barcode through an infrared enabled scanner.

The self-printable boarding passes are extended to London Heathrow, London City, Aberdeen, Birmingham and Manchester airports in the UK.

Another striking feature that could change the face of airport delays is self service luggage check-in kiosks introduced by SAS. These kiosks can automatically scan the contents, check the weight, tag them and check them in.

Passengers also have the flexibility of checking into an airport 22 hours before the scheduled flight take-off and can also change seats or the class of travel.

These modern additions are commendable and will definitely enrich flyer’s experience, especially business class who don’t have to check-in luggage. All other flights should take a leaf out of SAS’ book to increase their customer satisfaction statistic.

JetBlue and American Airlines are all set to test internet service for passengers on-flight in the coming weeks/months. Internet signals will be beamed from high towers situated on the ground rather than satellite signals.

JetBlue currently has plans of providing limited internet connectivity to passengers. It would consist of accessing Yahoo mail accounts and instant messaging. The reason for depriving passengers with comprehensive connectivity is blamed on the available bandwidth. The airliner could also have signed a secret deal with Yahoo; but the web giant claims that a separate url would be provided which comprises of zero or minimal graphics.

American Airlines on the other hand has no half measures. The internet connectivity would be complete and impartial. The internet connectivity is bound to be installed on its inter-continental flights alone as the journey time is significantly higher than domestic travel.

A recent survey showed that the chances of passengers paying for internet on a four hour flight is 26% and for over four hours is almost double at 45%. So, it definitely makes sense to install these on flights that fly for a longer duration non-stop.

JetBlue has decided to provide the capability on its Airbus A320s and American on Boeing 767.

While JetBlue’s service is ready to be deployed in the coming weeks, it may take a few months for American. JetBlue is currently testing the connectivity on its test aircraft that flies between Los Angeles and New York.

With the introduction of internet on flights, a new era is bound to rise in the history of airline industry. This will surely change the face of air travel. Maybe, other in-flight entertainment modes onboard could very well become unpopular.

Google Transit, an online tool that provides people with real time information on public transportation from source to destination has been introduced in the UK. This tool is an improvement over Google Maps and Directions as the prior system provided the transit points and roads that were used by public carriers.

The following places in Europe have been included on Google Transit according to the company blog:

- Travel South East, UK
- SBB, Switzerland (train, ferries and long distance bus coverage)
- VBZ, Zurich, Switzerland
- Turin, Italy
- Florence, Italy

Try it yourself: type your start and end address in the “get directions” boxes. The default results are driving directions, but in the areas that we have transit routing coverage, you can simply click on the “Take Public Transit” link.

By obtaining real time information on the public transportation, people should ideally be encouraged to use buses, trains and other public carriers. This should work in the favour of cutting down on number of cars on road and hence the right step towards reduction in pollution.

London’s underground subway system may not be a boring ride anymore. Three scientists from University of California are working on setting up a music sharing network in the trains.

London Undersound as the project is called, will work exactly like any other music sharing network. Mobile phones enabled with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will act as terminals. Each station will have certain tracks in its repository and will have some relation to the area of the city. Users can download songs, share with others and also upload to the repository.

London’s subway system is a mobile-shadow region; no mobiles pick up even the faintest of signals. Transponders are not allowed in this over a century old tunnels. The only use of cell phones on the system is to play games or exchange files locally using Bluetooth or IR.

While sharing of music comes into picture, it also attracts the legal corridors. The men behind this project have decided not to play with fire; emerging artists’ work will be shared instead. Certain filters will be used to prevent copyrighted material from being shared and uploaded.

Technology has changed everything; starting from how we book airline tickets and now the way we shop. A new service has been launched by technology and SMS provider Dialogue Communications and development company Evevoy called 2shop4 which lets consumers purchase items through mobile phones.

This pilot project which is set to last for 3 months allows consumers to enter a text code on their mobile phones and send it across to a particular number. Each item is tagged with a unique code; these codes are available in advertisements, websites, TV ads and other directories. When the code is sent, a secure payment option is made available on the cell phone to complete the transaction.

2shop4 will carry travel accessories and other travel necessities along with film tickets, supermarket items and other retail goods.

This is definitely an innovation and I hope this experiment takes off in the right direction. If this concept becomes a success, it will definitely rewrite the process of shopping and save consumers lots of time.