Trainline, here comes the personalized AI agent for train travel

Europe's railways are undergoing a profound revolution. After decades of national monopolies, the liberalization of rail transport is completely reshaping the landscape of the sector, creating a competitive ecosystem that promises to radically transform the travel experience for millions of passengers.

Spain , with its four railway operators already active, has led the way in this epochal change, demonstrating how competition can translate into more accessible prices and better services.

Italy, with two main operators and a third on the way , is rapidly aligning itself with this trend, while other European countries are looking at the model with interest. But this multiplication of players brings with it a complexity : if previously it was enough to turn to a single national company, today the traveler finds himself faced with a galaxy of options, fares, timetables and services that make the optimal choice an operation that is anything but simple. It is in this fragmented scenario that digital platforms such as Trainline today propose themselves even more as a technological glue capable of unifying the dispersed offer, transforming the complexity of the liberalized market into concrete opportunities for consumers. A transformation that is not only technological, but represents a real paradigm shift: from protected monopoly to open competition, from limited choice to the personalization of the travel experience.

More operators, more competitive prices

The expansion strategy of railway operators is already showing its fruits in other European markets: more operators, greater competition, falling prices . This scenario of greater competition translates into direct benefits for consumers. The recent research "AI and mobility", conducted by Doxa for Trainline, confirms this trend: 51% of Italians said they saved money by comparing prices , while 29% were able to travel more often thanks to offers found online.

The complexity behind the simplicity

Paradoxically, the more competitive the market becomes, the more complexity grows for the traveler.

“It’s going to be increasingly complex to search for tickets and Trainline is going to be a key player for everyone to search for a journey and keep it simple,” says Mike Hyde, Chief Technology Officer at Trainline . The technological challenge is significant: “We connect approximately 300 different travel providers across bus and train operators and the problem with rail is that technologically they’re almost all different,” explains Hyde. “They all have their own APIs, their own technology, it’s not like the airline industry where it’s standardised.”

Artificial Intelligence at the Service of the Traveler

To manage this growing complexity, Trainline has launched an AI agent in the UK, which will soon be available in Italy.

"It's a first for the rail industry," Hyde points out. But how does it work? "When you've bought a ticket, you scroll down and at the bottom it says ' Smarter Systems '. When you open it, a chat window opens, which knows the ticket you bought," the CTO explains. "So it's not a generic chatbot, but a personalized assistant that can answer specific questions about your trip . You can ask it to change your ticket, schedule, ask for a refund or even schedules and any delays in real time. Soon we'll turn it into a voice agent."

Italians' acceptance of AI is changing: according to the Trainline study, 91% trust artificial intelligence to improve the train travel experience, while 86% use digital platforms to plan their trips.

" AI is completely changing the travel industry ," reflects Hyde, who has a background in IT & Data at Facebook, Skype and Microsoft. "I remember when mobile internet arrived in 2012: everything changed, the way companies built products, the way they worked. AI is on the same level. Every tech company has to rethink its product opportunities, its business model. Before we were limited by pixels on the screen, now you can simply talk to your app: 'I'd like to book a holiday in 5 countries, I have a dog, I have 3 children, I want to leave on Sunday, I want to go somewhere warm but not too hot'. You can present a complex problem, which is no longer constrained by four buttons on the screen."

Even internally, AI is transforming the way we work. "Out of a thousand total employees, we have about 600 people at Trainline who are technicians, engineers of different types, and we are testing about six different AI solutions for coding," explains the CTO. "It doesn't fully automate the work yet, but engineers are writing more code, making more changes, their speed is increasing. But the interesting thing is that AI also helps in all the work that happens around coding: reading and understanding existing code, writing tests, documentation. In some cases we are seeing more benefits in these activities than in the actual coding."

Towards an integrated ecosystem

Digitalization is radically changing the way we travel. Italians are demanding greater integration: 84% want to buy regional and local tickets from a single app. The most requested features include savings through ticket combinations (42%), multimodal connection information (20%), and real-time notifications (17%).

The future of rail transport

The transformation underway goes far beyond simple online booking. "This has been done for a competitive market, no longer monopolistic, and to encourage competition and choice for the user," concludes Hyde, outlining a vision in which technology becomes the enabler of a more efficient, accessible and customer-oriented rail market.

With Italy leading the way in this transformation process, the future of European rail transport seems to be increasingly digital, competitive and focused on the needs of the traveler.