AI can fix the fragmented online public transport space
In Europe each country has its own idiosyncratic public transport presence online.
Netherlands has NS and NS international. Both are different apps, one works internally and one for international.
There's also GVB, 9292 and OVPay but I forget what's the best way to do it (this is kind of my point). All of them have some overlap. To be fair - Netherlands is one of the simpler countries that just requires you to tap in and tap out using Debit card and this process generally works well. The other apps exist to give more options and discounts.
In Germany its even more complicated with DB app with all sorts of random tickets for daily, one way, two way and so on.
Today I was met with lots of anxiety while taking a regional train in Germany. There was literally no way to purchase the ticket. After some digging with ChatGPT, I found out that you have to physically purchase this ticket in a kiosk. I'm genuinely not sure how a person is supposed to intuitively understand this.
Denmark, a country with less than 9 million people, has another different app that has its own rules with "zones" and other discounts. When I first went to Copenhagen, I legitimately got anxiety buying tickets because the process is so convoluted for a beginner.
Don't get me started with Paris zones and how they work. There was one time when I was feverishly figuring out whether the location I was standing in belonged to Zone Number 12983 or not. Who knows? I just wanted to get from point A to point B.
Switzerland has it's own system as well.
As a person travelling to a different country (or even a city) in Europe, you are met with a new transport application with its own internal vocabulary and strange rules. Do you get a zonal ticket? Do you get a daily ticket? I don't know.
What works for me now is - I screenshot the app multiple times and ask ChatGPT what to do. Its slow and time consuming but at least reduces the anxiety.
This is the perfect opportunity for AI to fix this fragmented place. Every such company should integrate using "connectors". I don't know what a connector is but it already exists in the form of MCPs.
The connectors should expose common tools for discovering transport options with filters like time, location and so on - so a common vocabulary is needed. There should also be a common gateway for purchasing the ticket - something that lets you verify the exact trip and lets you commit to the purchase. Also a common notion of daily, weekly and monthly tickets.
There doesn't seem to be any downside for the public transport apps to be doing this. If anything it might just increase the adoption even more and make tourists feel less anxious. I only see revenue going up.
I do get why a larger e-commerce player might be anxious to expose a connector, perhaps loss of control in the customer life cycle like like data collected and less chance to control the brand and feeling. But why do public transport applications need this control?