U.K. Train Travelers Get WAP Timetable Service

[London, ENGLAND] U.K. mobile Internet information company
Kizoom has signed with
Railtrack to provide
a personalized rail timetable service to mobile users.

Half a million people regularly use Railtrack’s Web site
which has proved to be one of the Internet’s most useful
and efficient applications in the U.K. Users simply insert
date and time parameters, plus starting point and destination,
and the service immediately tells them which train to take.

Now the service is available to users of WAP (Wireless Application
Protocol) phones and is scheduled to appear on several leading
wireless portals.

Railtrack Property Director John O’Brien said that rail travel
in the U.K. is at its highest level for over half a century
and it was essential to make clear and accurate information
readily available to travelers.

Nick Knowles, Kizoom’s founder and chief technical officer,
claimed that the new service was simple to use, even with
the limited keyboard and screen of a mobile phone.

“Mobility itself is one of the killer applications for the
mobile Internet, and travel information will be a key component
of any portfolio of services offered by wireless portals to
their customers. We are in an ideal position to become their
travel information partner of choice,” said Knowles.

Nick Knowles has been the technical driver of two other
successful companies, as co-founder of CASE tool vendor
Synon, acquired by Sterling US $79 million in 1998, and
with Java developer Object Technology International for
which he started a London laboratory.

The Railtrack application from Kizoom is thought to be the
first personalized travel information service for the mobile
Internet. To use it, travelers log on to register their
personal details at the Railtrack site, after which content
relevant to each person can be accessed from a WAP phone.

At the launch of the Railtrack service Knowles said that
Kizoom intended eventually to bring together information
from other modes of public transport such as tube, coach
and bus to create a seamless service for the user.