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Journey Planning Pods touch down - and take off - at Stansted

16 May 2007

London, 16th May 2007 - BAA's new journey information terminals, supplied by urban digital network provider, Cityspace in April, are proving to be the main attraction in the baggage reclaims where three have been located as part of an initial trial at Stansted airport.

Since the bright yellow touch screen Pods were introduced at Stansted, usage has rocketed with nearly 4,000 travellers turning to the service within its first few weeks.

The popularity of the Pods represents a great dividend to BAA's investment in encouraging increased adoption of public transport. The partnership with Cityspace creates a valuable self-service facility for the travelling public in helping them to plan onward journeys from one of the UK's busiest international hubs.

"Around 40% of passengers currently use public transport to get to and from Stansted," explains Steve Mills, Stansted's public transport manager.

"This is the highest figure for any airport in the UK - and the second highest in Europe. By equipping passengers with an easy to access transport information service, at the point of need, we expect to see even greater adoption of public transport."

The Cityspace Information Pods deliver the definitive onward journey planning service, enabling passengers to plan every step of their journey be it by rail, bus, coach or road with valuable disruption news and printable maps.

"Airports are ideal locations to provide digital journey planning services." says Guy Wolfenden, Director, Cityspace Transport.

"Travellers through Stansted can now see all their transport options from the airport to any location in the south east. The multi-modal journey planner does all the hard work to find the fastest route, providing a printable route map for every leg of the journey. The System also includes exact rail times, bus routes and timetables and even road disruptions news. This is a service which was never before possible using customer service staff or printed timetables, but it's the perfect application for internet technology."

To illustrate this very point, access to journey planning service across all three Pods far outstripped other interactive channels in the first two months.

Steve Mills concludes: "We will be monitoring closely how widely used the Information Pods become, as we have plans to install more of them in the future if they prove successful. Our new bus and coach station, which is due for completion before the summer kicks in, is one area where we are looking to extend the network, along with the train station at Stansted."

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