Most recent statement from Amadeus:

“Minimising such incidents and their impact on our customers is very important to Amadeus.

“During the incident, our priority was to return to normal service as quickly as possible; once it closed we focused on identifying the cause and analysing actions we could take to avoid reoccurrence. The cause of the problem appears to be a network component.

“We are continuing to investigate this in detail. Once again, we regret the inconvenience this incident may have caused.”

ORIGINAL:

The extent of a significant technology failure at Amadeus yesterday is beginning to unravel, as other systems across the industry are now known to have been affected.

Amadeus is remaining tight-lipped as to what triggered such a major collapse, when an outage which lasted a number of hours managed to hit passenger self check-in and reservation systems, agency bookings as well as airport counter systems.

A post on the Amadeus blog this morning said the incident had been fully resolved, with an apology for the inconvenience. Officials will not disclose the nature and size of the outage.

It is understood that although Amadeus customers were hit by the problems, other GDSs were also impacted as the Amadeus airline IT system ALTEA was involved.

ALTEA currently powers over 100 airlines around the world, including British Airways, Qantas, Iberia and Cathay Pacific.

Although it is an Amadeus-run platform, agencies on other distribution networks such as Sabre and Travelport which were trying to connect to some of the airlines involved were also unable to carry out fare queries or make bookings.

A number of insiders across the GDSs have confirmed that the outage was far bigger than initially thought given that the ALTEA system effectively controls how agencies on other networks connect to airline reservation systems.

NB: Image via Shutterstock.

The outage lasted a number of hours and hit passenger self check-in and reservation systems, agency bookings as well as airport counter systems.

Reports say British Airways, Qantas, Iberia and Cathay Pacific are among the airlines hit by the system failure.

In short: it could be the double whammy of a distribution service and airline IT collapse.

At around 2000 CET (1300 EST), Amadeus released a statement to confirm that all airline systems are restored.

“Some travel agency customers may continue to experience service disruption which we are investigating. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.”

Amadeus says a detailed explanation as to what happened and which airlines were affected will be released in due course.

The problem is the second in as many months for Amadeus, after seeing Qantas hit by a major outage in December when passengers were unable to check-in with the airline for a number of hours in December last year.

More to follow…

NB: Image via Shutterstock.

Is NFC ready for prime time? 2011 saw just four articles on Tnooz tagged with NFC (Near Field Communication), one of which was a futuristic video.

2012 will undoubtedly see a lot more written about NFC (starting here), but the real question is, will passengers see widespread use of NFC-enabled smartphones?

In truth, it’s unlikely.

In this article, I’ll go into some detail about some of the lessons we’ve learned during a SITA Lab proof of concept project (developed with Orange Business Services), list some problems limiting adoption, and what the industry is doing to address these problems.

Why NFC has value for passengers

NFC offers many benefits to the travel industry but I’ll focus on the passenger self-service uses identified by the IATA Fast Travel Programme, and highlighted in the joint GSMA/IATA document on mobile NFC for Air Travel.

Of course passengers can already use mobile boarding passes at self-service touch points in the airport – automatic security gates, lounge access, self-boarding. But the experience is not as smooth as it could be, especially at the point of use in the airport.

For example, with self-boarding the passenger has to visually present the barcode by unlocking the phone and then accessing a web URL or navigating through a phone app. In the SITA Passenger Self- Service Survey (2011), SITA found that 21% of passengers did not use a phone to board because it was perceived as too complex, and 12% cited the risk of the phone not functioning properly.

NFC promises a simpler experience as passengers simply place their phone on the reader and the boarding pass is read automatically. Passengers don’t even need to switch their phone on, they just “tap and go”.

For NFC to justify the costs of rollout and deliver real benefits it must simplify the passenger experience, and not just be a technology swap. And this makes the “tap and go” experience important.

But NFC phones are already here – what’s the problem?

The major device manufacturers have either released devices with NFC capabilities, or have announced that they will do so in 2012. But not all NFC phones are made equal, and what is not made clear is what type of NFC communications they support.

By and large, they all support basic NFC tag reading. But, the most exciting thing you can do with an NFC phone ’off the shelf’ is to hold your phone to an advert and get even more adverts. So, what are the different NFC types, and why does it matter?

NFC comes in several flavours:

1. Reader/writer mode.

The use case here is to tap your phone against a smart tag (e.g. embedded in a poster) to get more info about that poster, maybe launch a web page. The phone reads data from the tag.

This is a good way for a passenger to get data but not a good way for the airport touch points to get data from the passenger.

2. Peer to Peer mode.

Hold two NFC phones together, or hold a NFC phone to a device and the devices will exchange information. This data can be anything from business card data to videos, to passenger data.

But Peer to Peer mode is user-initiated and features proprietary data exchange protocols. Again, not a great way for the airport touch points to get data from the passenger.

3. Card Emulation mode.

In this mode, the phone emulates a contactless smart card (such as the London Underground Oyster Card). A reader (e.g. boarding gate) can read a boarding pass from the phone.

And crucially, it does this without any user interaction.

When it comes to simplifying the user experience, card emulation is the crown jewel of NFC. It is the only NFC mode that will let a device read data from a phone without requiring the phone user to initiate the process or even take any active part in the process.

But to understand how it does this is to understand some of the problems holding NFC back. So, let’s consider what happens in card emulation mode.

Cardlets – not your ordinary app

But first, an introduction to the Secure Element and cardlets. The Secure Element is a special chip on the phone that can store data and run cardlets. There are multiple implementations of the Secure Element:

• In the GSMA model, the SIM acts as the Secure Element.
• Google Wallet uses an embedded Secure Element
• Visa is proposing using a secure memory card

In all cases, the cardlet is an application that executes on the Secure Element to manage data. It runs in this secure environment outside of the main phone OS. A Secure Element can contain multiple cardlets – each cardlet has a unique ID.

So, in the self-boarding scenario, the following sequence of events happen:

• The passenger holds the phone near a boarding gate NFC reader
• Boarding gate reader selects the cardlet from the Secure Element using the pre-assigned cardlet ID (there may be multiple cardlets on the Secure Element)
• The cardlet validates that the boarding gate is authentic by using a secret challenge/response
• The boarding gate reader then issues a query to get the appropriate boarding pass from the cardlet. (there may be more than one boarding pass on the phone)
• The cardlet responds with a boarding pass (data is encoded in format IATA Resolution 792 just like 2DBCs)

This brings up several problems, for which there are currently no standard solutions. Some problems must be solved by the air transport industry, and some must be solved by the mobile industry (mobile network operators, device manufacturers and mobile operating system vendors).

Mobile Industry Challenges:

1. How do you install a cardlet app on the Secure Element?

Not through the app store, that’s for sure! An update to the Secure Element can typically only take place over a contactless interface (e.g. charging your Oyster card) or Over The Air (OTA) via a Trusted Service Manager. But the developer community needs an API or a Service for this.

2. How do you send the boarding pass data to the Secure Element?

Again, the developer community needs an API or a service for this.

Air Transport Industry Challenges:

The challenges facing the air transport industry are ensuring the appropriate boarding pass is presented securely to authorized readers. A passenger can have more than one boarding pass stored on the phone but a security or gate reader should get the appropriate boarding pass automatically.

The appropriate boarding pass depends on the location (airport), the date or time, and the context (passenger boarding a flight, at security, duty free, lounge access, etc.).

• A reader must know the cardlet ID in order to query that cardlet. Should there be one cardlet for the ATI? Or a cardlet per airline, per alliance, airport or country/region? Given that each cardlet app must be uniquely identified, who will manage and allocate unique cardlet IDs?
• How to ensure security and a consistent way to retrieve a boarding pass between the reader and the various NFC- enabled phones.

For the mobile industry issues, we are seeing solutions emerge from GSMA (promoting the use of the SIM as the Secure Element).

They have established the Open Mobile API initiative which has already been incorporated into some Android NFC devices as a way for the application to access the Secure Element in an Android NFC phone.

Google has its Google Wallet which uses the embedded Secure Element, but it is a closed shop and there are no public APIs for Secure Element access. The picture is less clear when it comes to the other players such as RIM, Nokia and Microsoft. Apple, as is the norm, is silent on the issue.

IATA is taking the lead in the air transport industry and the Fast Travel Workgroup is working through the problems and opportunities to define the necessary standards to ensure NFC boarding passes can be use consistently across different airlines and airports. Interoperable standards are key to the success and adoption of NFC.

Next steps?

In 2012, SITA Lab will continue with NFC as a research project, both with Orange Business Services and others. Our aim is to release the current proof of concept “into the wild” (albeit on a limited basis), and to continue to work with industry organisations – such as IATA – airlines and airports to establish global standards to ensure the NFC ecosystem is as interoperable as current e-ticketing or 2DBC services.

As an industry, air transport must push the mobile industry players to solve problems that are blocking adoption. Watch this space.

Here is a clip:

NB: This is a guest article by Kevin O’Sullivan, lead engineer at SITA Lab.

NB2: Image via Shutterstock.

From drop-off at Atlanta to pick-up in New York, the video shows the bag passing along the myriad of conveyor belts behind the scenes at each airport and being loaded and unloaded from the aircraft.

Safe to presume the Transportation Security Administration knew about the stunt beforehand – but for security reasons, unfortunately the most interesting part of the journey (the TSA inspection area) is blacked out momentarily.

Available only on Google Maps on Android-operated mobile devices, the idea is to give users better understanding of what is actually inside an airport rather than just seeing the block of a terminal building on its existing maps.

Launched for a string of US and Japanese airports (and shopping zones) initially, users can find their check-in areas, boarding gates, shops and other amenities.

It is, essentially, what startups such as Point Inside have been working on for a few years.

Missing in the Google version (but not in Bing’s) at the moment is any link to live schedules for flights, clearly the most handy piece of information anybody visiting an airport inevitably needs.

But it doesn’t take too much imagination to work out where this might head in the future.

Throw in flight search and schedules, maybe some airport hotel search and car hire (as Google has said is likely to come in its assault on the travel sectora, alongside things to do in a location, perhaps), and Google has quite an interesting travel app on its hands.

Well, fancy that.

By then, of course, we probably wouldn’t think of such things as “mobiles”, but devices of all shapes and sizes which are omnipresent in our lives.

So what will happen when Near Field Communication truly takes hold? And touchscreen input is the norm?

Or highly advanced screen displays work anywhere, even in mid-air, probably in three dimensions?

When any material is essentially an interactive surface, where people can obtain information, talk to friends and colleagues? Or simply where everything around us is digitised, but in a subtle, seemingly helpful way.

Luckily we have Microsoft to try and visualise it all (and the money to make a glossy and extremely awe inspiring video, of course).

Enjoy…

The British Airports Authority describes the pods as the first new example of transit technology in 100 years.

The 21 battery-powered pods were developed by UK company Ultra PRT and BAA based on a project started by Bristol University.

They cost £30 million to develop, have been in testing since April and have already carried 10o,ooo passengers.

BAA estimates they will carry 500,000 passengers between terminal 5 and the business car park each year.

A few green facts about the pods:

• Run on low-energy batteries
• Have zero emissions
• Will eliminate 50,000 bus journeys each year

Pods can carry four passengers with luggage and will be situated at stations according to demand.

But the cheeky marketers and developers at Scandinavian airline giant SAS have seized on its “most punctual airline” tag (according to FlightStats) to create an iPhone application for people to use while they are delayed at airports.

The TimeKiller app includes four very simple games, called Spin The Hamster, Blow The Propeller, Hold That Thought and Follow The Footsteps for users “that do not have our exceptional punctuality record” – all of which use the iPhone’s various rotate and touch functionality.

All good fun, but presumably the airline will be hoping that despite the app being promoted heavily on the site, its own passengers will not be forced to use it on the (obviously rare) occasions when SAS does have reliability issues.

Here is a clip:

The annual SITA-Air Transport World passenger self-service survey found the number of passengers carrying smartphones has almost doubled in the past 12 months, jumping from 28% to 54%.

The figure soars to 74% of business and first class passengers and frequent flyers, with exactly three quarters of passengers passing through the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, carrying one.

SITA-ATW spoke to nearly 2,500 passengers at Abu Dhabi International Airport, Beijing International Airport, Frankfurt International Airport, Mumbai International and Sao Paulo Guarulhos.

The combined passenger numbers for the airports reached 283.5 million last year.

Highlights of survey:

• 73% would like to use mobile boarding passes, with 17% already having done so.
• Almost a quarter (23%) have used Bluetooth connections at an airport.
• Around a third (33%) use mobiles to check in – 36% for business and first class passengers.
• Over 50% of business and first class receive SMS text messages for alerts.
• Four out of five do NOT want to receive information about shopping deals at airports, although passengers at Abu Dhabi (34%), Beijing (32%) and Mumbai (30%) do.
• 75% of smartphone users would connect to a free wifi network at an airport and are generally looking to access trip-related information.
• The most popular activity when connected at the airport is information on flights (77%), security (50%), departure gate walking times (40%), directions (21%) and airport parking (21%).

The airport has created what it calls virtual boarding agents, essentially 2D digital holograms which guide passengers to gates when a flight is ready (who, as AP puts it cheekily, do not strike).

The project began in July this year and works by beaming a digitised image of three different agents onto the back of a piece of thin plexi-glass in one of the departure areas in the Parisian airport. Each holds a placard with the name of the destination and wishes passengers a “bon voyage”.

It is the third airport (after similar facilities in London and Manchester) to be fitted with such kit by Paris-based tech marketing agency L’Oeil du Chat.

Aeroports de Paris, the company which runs the Orly, Le Bourget and Charles de Gaulle airports, is certainly of the more progressive users of technology, having also recently introduced a free iPhone application to use the GPS within the handset to guide passengers around each of the locations and provide detailed information on available services.

The virtual boarding agent project will run until the end of 2011, by which time passengers may have got used to the new staffers in the departure lounges.

Apparently the agents smile pleasantly and look around the room as passengers walk by to the aircraft, leading some children in the terminal to trying to talk to the agent  - with, obviously, no response.

Presumably, interaction will come later…

The Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR) project has actually been up and running officially since 2007, when the European community members and the continent-wide ATC group Eurocontrol were mandated to modernise the overstretched and diverse range of systems.

But the project has now reached a new phase with officials appointing strategic partners, as part of the so-called Fly4D consortium, to help steer implementation of the programme.

Sabre has joined the likes of aircraft manufacturer Airbus in this latest wave.

The initiative, dubbed “one of the most ambitious research and development projects ever launched by the European Union”, has the target of integrating all existing air traffic control and management systems into a single system, primarily to replace the myriad of different technology, processes and procedures for passage of aircraft throughout Europe.

A “single sky” for ATC will be expected to reduce flight cancellations and delays by 50% as well as reduce carbon emissions by 50 million tonnes annually.

The startup [TLabs Showcase - GateGuru] raised part of the round through Brad Harrison (BHVentures), Allen Morgan, Chamath Palihapitiya (Embarcadero Ventures), Tom Glocer, (CEO, Thomson Reuters), Thomas Lehrman and Matt Daimler (SeatGuru founder), as well the Angellist fund.

Coinciding with the funding announcement is news that the GateGuru service will now be available on Android devices alongside the original iPhone application.

GateGuru CEO Dan Gellert says the move into the Android marketplace was “imperative” given the rise of the Google-led smartphone operating system and was something potential users had called for since the company’s launch in 2009.

The company claims to have 500,000 users of the original application and has secured a number of strategic partnerships, including integration with the Kayak app and a deal with American Express.

Covering 125 airports worldwide, GateGuru has also attracted 25,000 reviews and tips from fellow users.

Perhaps the most intriguing element is the study’s view on how quickly (or not) the sale of airline ancillary product will develop via mobile handsets.

The report, written by Travel Tech Consulting boss and Tnooz node Norm Rose, says the majority of the airlines around the world that were interviewed felt the ability to sell ancillary products via mobiles was “still over a year away”.

Only one (unnamed) airline in North America has the ability to sell ancillary services through mobiles, the report claims, although a number of airlines in the Middle East and Scandinavia claim to have plans to increase their mobile offering into the ancillary area in the next six months.

Presumably the hoped-for explosion will kick in within the next few years at a wider scale.

Unsurprisingly, then, the study found that just 1.4% of passengers had used a mobile to buy an ancillary product from an airline.

Amadeus suggests mobile could be a useful tool as way of “providing both increased incremental revenue opportunities and the ability for airlines to differentiate themselves from the competition”.

Traveller demand for mobile functionality from airlines is apparently growing, with the report finding 16% of consumers are currently using a handset to book trips. The figure increases to 18% for 18 to 35 year olds and a third overall for frequent fliers.

Still, just 3.4% of the 3,000 interviewed for the study use mobiles for flight check-in, with consumers in Asia coming in at 7.4%.

There is a full report to download, but also a rather handy infographic, too [click image for a larger version]:

The clip is the work of the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and was commissioned by its Ground Handling Operations Safety Team in an effort to reduce the safety risks during ground support activities.

Selecting Dickinson to front the video is obviously not some kind of dark joke, as alongside belting out metal classics from albums such as No Prayer for the Dying, Killers and A Matter of Life and Death, he is also a qualified pilot with aircraft leasing firm Astraeus Airlines.

The 20-minute clip is actually quite a sobering reminder of the intricate requirements needed to ensure aircraft, passengers, crew and ground staff stay safe.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZbH62Bn0oM

Presumably, the CAA’s counterpart in the US, the Federal Aviation Administration, will be calling celebrity aviator John Travolta soon…

Created in time for the Paris Airshow this week, Airbus has followed on from the conceptual airliner created last year by imagining what passengers are likely to expect when they board one of its aircraft in 40 years time.

The aircraft is divided into three zones: vitalising, interactive and smart tech.

Vitalising zone – all about wellbeing and relaxation allowing passengers to recharge their batteries with vitamin and antioxidant enriched air, “mood lighting”, aromatherapy and acupressure treatments.

Interactive zone – virtual pop up projections in this area transform occupants to whichever social scene they want to be in, from holographic gaming to virtual changing rooms for shoppers.

Smart tech zone – tailored towards functional oriented passenger with a chameleon style offering, ranging from simple to a complete luxury service, but all allowing them to continue life as if on the ground.

Airbus says:

“By offering different levels of experience within each zone, airlines would be able to achieve price differentials and give more people access to the benefits of air travel with minimal environmental impact.”

Here is a clip:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_czyTOB35xY

Airbus currently spends around $2 billion a year research and development, and claims 90% of the budget is geared toward environmental considerations

The 2050 cabin will be made from 100% recyclable materials, have self-cleaning materials and use passenger body heat to power some of its features, Airbus claims.

Launched at the World Air Transport Summit in Singapore, IATA has combined technology with a new approach to identifying threat levels posed by passengers and taking steps to establish whether they threaten the safety of an aircraft.

The screening units are three separate tunnels labelled “Stranger”, “Normal” and “Known Traveller”.

If and when the system is implemented at airports, security staff will select which particular part of the unit each passenger should pass through.

IATA says:

“The determination will be based on a biometric identifier in the passport or other travel document that triggers the results of a risk assessment conducted by government before the passenger arrives at the airport.”

If a traveller is “known” (having registered and completed background checks with government authorities), passengers will pass through quickly.

The “normal” screening will be for the majority of travellers, IATA says, with fewer technology-led checks than those in the “stranger” tunnel.

Screening will include retina tests, fingerprinting, body scanning, and metal and liquid detection technology.

IATA says:

“Screening technology is being developed that will allow passengers to walk through the checkpoint without having to remove clothes or unpack their belongings. Moreover, it is envisioned that the security process could be combined with outbound customs and immigration procedures, further streamlining the passenger experience.”

The project is at an early phase, but IATA says it is in talks with 19 governments around the world to develop the technology and processes further.

Biometric scanning and the “three-lane concept” is ready now, claims IATA director general and CEO, Giovanni Bisignani, with a prediction that some of the technology will be developed further and become part of major changes to how airports handle security being within two to three years.

The service is an extension of the existing WorldTracer system provided by SITA, is backed by global aviation organisation IATA and uses flight data from Innovata.

While more than 450 airlines and ground staff use the existing WorldTracer at 2,200 airports around the world for baggage tracing, WorldTracerWeb Mobile will boost efforts further by placing the hard data as to potential whereabouts of a lost item in the hands of agents in baggage halls and elsewhere around an airport.

SITA reckons than one in eight pieces of lost luggage are intended for connecting flights at an airport, meaning that inevitably the item must be scheduled for carriage on a flight not associated with the passenger.

The new mobile service will allow agents on the ground to file a report and process the re-routing of any lost baggage with the passenger in the airport.

The system was trialled at Prague Airport in the Czech Republic capital ahead of its full launch this week.

Airport ICT operations manager Martin Sýkora says:

“During the pilot our agents in Prague were able to offer prompt service to passengers allowing them to quickly file a baggage claim.

“The flexibility of the service means that staff can be allocated when, and where, they are needed to tackle any mishandled luggage and to reduce the time it takes to re-unite passengers with their bags.”

SITA claims although there is a general downward trend over the past four years in the number of items going missing around the world, 2010 saw a slight rise due to the major disruptions experienced as a result of the Icelandic ash cloud.

Around 60 Hudson News retail stores in airports dotted around the country will soon have a kiosk where passengers can recharge smartphones and access other services.

The slick units, produced by Keo Connect, have a phone connection system and other time-wasting tools and gizmos.

Users can check the weather at destinations, track departure and arrival information of flights, read news, business and sport bulletins.

Multimedia transfer kit is also to be included so users can organise files contained on SD cards, USB and other devices.

Still, best part still looks like the charging system (free, as well).

Social media sceptics soon realised that given the scale of the crisis (large swathes of airspace closed for up to a week at the height of the disruption) they could use social media channels to answer questions from consumers and drip-feed information about the status of flights and services.

Services such as Twitter and Facebook came into their own, not as replacements for traditional customer service, but to supplement and provide additional channels for communication, especially as many airline and airport call centres were simply overloaded for much of the period.

Twelve months on and, with an eruption from fellow Icelandic volcano Grimsvotn starting to have some impact on flights, many of the lessons learned from 2010 are being implemented quickly.

For consumers and travel companies there are a number of resources on social media channels for accurate and up-to-date information:

• Pan-European air traffic control organisation EuroControl is the go-to profile on Twitter (@eurocontrol), publishing regular updates around airspace closure and subsequent affect on flights.

• Although airlines now have the final decision (a change from 2010) as to whether they will fly during disruption (subject to approval by national air traffic bodies), airports are using social media to provide a broader view on services. Ones to watch are the major UK airports London Heathrow [@heathrowairport] and Gatwick [@gatwick_airport], both of which are updating regularly, as well as Amsterdam Schiphol [@schiphol] and Paris [@AeroportsParis].

• Interestingly, Twitter appears to be the channel of choice at this early stage, although the Facebook-loving KLM is answering questions from customers. No mention on the British Airways page.

• For those keen to see in real-time what is going on in the air, look no further than the fantastic FlightRadar air traffic and Google Map mashup (including handy ash cloud position).

Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?

GoScopia creates, aggregates and displays scheduled, unscheduled, public and private modes of transportation around any city, address, geographic coordinates or three-letter IATA codes worldwide.

Search results are weighted and grouped, allowing the user to quickly build customized intermodal itineraries. Current modes include all types of air, rail, bus, shuttles, taxis, limousines, car rentals, motor home (RV) rentals and ferries.

Other services currently included at airports are lounges, parking and Park & Fly hotel packages. We are also working to add cruises, yacht rentals, motorbike rentals, bicycle rentals, hiking trails, scooter rentals for the disabled and free hotel airport shuttles.

So much of online travel is geared toward airlines and rail, yet those are just two of many modes of transportation available to the average traveler.

Our goal is to be able to respond to any travel need, whether it is the type of trip or the type of traveler.

In the first phase of development, we are simply displaying data in a dynamic platform. In phase two, we will be focused on employing our proprietary algorithms to provide customized connections and booking capabilities for the individual traveler.

GoScopia is a product of Scopia Technologies LLC , a travel and transportation software company based in Milwaukee, USA.

Established in 2004, the company provides intermodal trip-planning solutions in the air and on the ground for travelers and other user-types, as well as an inexpensive, global, targeted marketing platform for transportation companies and other travel-related products.

Development of the GoScopia project started in March, 2010.

We have an international team, each with more than 20 years experience in their respective fields.  Those fields include travel, travel technology, software development, business development, marketing and advertising.

The ethnic and cultural diversity of the team brings unique perspectives, delivering a tool that works for a wide array of travelers across the globe.

What financial support did you have to launch the business?

We are currently funding our operations through personal investments, a small business loan and a few small advertisers.

What problem are you trying to solve?

For most on-line travelers, booking any trip currently requires a time-consuming series of web sites, search engines, e-mails and phone calls.

There is no one site that puts it all together in an easy-to-understand search and booking tool. In addition, other intermodal booking tools are hard-coded while we believe such a system should be extremely dynamic and flexible during the planning and physical travel phases.

Although Scopia Technologies LLC developed the algorithms for one of the world’s first intermodal search engines during 2005-2007, we realized those algorithms would not work without the creation and aggregation of useful and relevant data sources. The team has dedicated much of its time to building the data foundation in order to offer the most comprehensive search capabilities to our customers.

In aggregating the data, we realized three important factors:

• That the display of the data provides a unique marketing opportunity for transportation providers, tourism attractions, accommodations and other travel and tourism services.
• That the data itself could be extremely useful to third parties as a tool to enhance revenues by integrating intermodal solutions and by displaying supplementary services which can be purchased by customers.
• That for many transportation providers who do not have software development staff, we can help them format and aggregate their data for display on GoScopia.com and many other global platforms.

With the data foundation in place, we are focused on creating the connection and booking tools required to truly offer a one-stop travel portal to a worldwide audience.

Describe the business, core products and services?

For travelers: We have created a website which can quickly and simply show users which modes of transportation are available nearby any point (as long as we have it in our data, which is updated continuously).

In a matter of seconds users can answer such questions as: “which airport is nearest to City X and which airlines fly there? How do I get from the airport or the rail station to my final destination? Which local bus company has a stop nearby and what routes are served by that stop?”

When searching the site, users see the transportation solutions displayed and color-coded on a map, as well as a listing below the map of the type of transportation, distance and direction and other information. Proprietary algorithms attempt to make the display as relevant as possible.

GoScopia “clusters” the modes around airports for greater ease of use. If until now users could only see the modes and nodes in a list below the map, now they can see whatever might be available around a particular airport or rail station.

Near an airport, for example, they can see the links for scheduled airlines that fly there, air taxi operators that serve that airport, public transportation, rentals, lounges available at the airport, transfers, parking and airport hotels.

Further, the user can see advertisements for products which may be relevant according to the user’s physical location and/or according to the destination searched. A user from the UK searching a destination in France will see advertisements for UK residents as well as products in France.

For transportation providers and other travel-related suppliers: We have created two very unique “products” for our partners. The first is a global, targeted and inexpensive marketing platform on which our partners can advertise. Partners can choose to advertise only in their respective market(s), only to specific markets or a combination of both.

As in the example above:

Showing a banner only to users in the UK who are searching for a destination in France. Further, since some advertisers wish to show their product in multiple locations worldwide, we have developed a system which helps to easily upload hundreds of location entries in just a few minutes.

The second product for our partners allows them to unify their data with other providers so that they can display their locations, routes and prices as part of our solutions as well as send it off to other trip planning platforms around the world.

Who are your key customers and users at launch?

• Travelers (leisure and corporate)
• Travel agents
• Corporate travel managers
• Licensing customers such as transportation providers, airlines, tourism organizations, etc.

Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?

Although we had strong customer validation before talking to investors, we didn’t need to bring any of them to the presentations. That is because each and every presentation we made before investors was followed by a procession of investors who just had to tell us how they could have used our trip-planning tool on their last trip.

What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?

The business is transportation geo-location and on-the-go purchasing of travel and tourism products. We hope to achieve revenue from advertising (we already have two paying advertisers), affiliate commissions and licensing fees for use of our API.

Our strategy for profitability is to continuously introduce new and better features, solutions and products. Our site is usable on smart phones and we hope to gain attention for that aspect of our product as well.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Strengths:

• GoScopia.com is the most comprehensive globally oriented tool out there. Our listing of secondary and tertiary services is a differentiator for GoScopia. The ability of GoScopia to weight search returns and cluster the data in a relevant manner. We further believe one of our greatest strengths is our deep understanding of the tourism and travel.

Weaknesses:

• Cash flow and speed to market. This is a rapidly changing environment and we are limited by our availability of resources.

Opportunities:

• The popularity and sustainability of smart phones and other mobile devices create a need for our tool. Travelers’ desire to go beyond major cities and destinations drives the need for intermodal connections to get from one adventure to the next.

Threats:

• As time goes on, our ideas may be implemented by competitors. We may miss the opportunity of being pioneers in certain areas due to lack of funding or ability to drive development.

Who advised you your idea isn’t going to be successful and why didn’t you listen to them?

Some people said we would never be able to compete with “the big guys” (even though we think “the big guys” might actually be interested in a product like ours).

Others said the plan was just too big. There were those who said we would never be able to collect all the data for all the places to show all the possible solutions.

We didn’t listen to them because that’s how great ideas die and because our experience in travel technology has taught us how to create and find the data we needed. In addition, we were confident in our research and knew those who couldn’t believe in the idea were not seeing the trends and opportunities our research had pointed out.

We also strongly believe our eventual products will surpass anything else out there.

What is your success metric 12 months from now?

We would like to have at least $100K in revenues from licensing, advertising and commissions by the end of 2011, so that we may speed up development.

NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.