Last week I received a briefing from the mobile technology vendor Service2Media. They were pretty excited to tell me about the mobile solutions they're creating for CNN, De Telegraaf and other media companies. They've also been working on travel solutions and launched a new service with the Dutch National railways today — Reisplanner Xtra:

http://www.ns.nl/cs/Satellite/reizigers/plan-uw-reis/reisinfo-onderweg

If you've lived in Japan and used Navitime, this kind of location aware, intelligent travel solution will be pretty familiar. However, it seems that ReisPlanner Xtra is the first mobile widget able to display context-aware travel information in Europe. Pretty soon, I predict that European consumers will start to expect this kind of intelligent, context-aware support on the device in their pockets from their banks, travel companies, news sources, social networks etc.

I want a version of this application for the UK – but it will need to incorporate some extra information to be useful: 

(1) How to get the cheapest ticket – notoriously complicated here

(2) How reliable the trains are on the route  I plan to take – sadly, I'm already getting frustrated with this

(3) Real-time updates on delays and interruptions to service – ditto

[Sorry for the sarcastic tone - Reverse culture shock is a weird and painful thing]