Conductor Sam: AI for European Rail Travel

Are you ready to embark on an exciting journey through the railways of Europe? Say hello to Conductor Sam, your new AI-powered travel companion from ShowMeTheJourney!

Navigating the world of European trains can be both thrilling and challenging, but Sam is here to make European rail travel easier to understand, more accessible, and even more enjoyable.
From finding the best routes to understanding ticket rules, from mastering station layouts to discovering onboard amenities, there's a lot that's worth asking about.

Now, the answers to these types of questions and so much more can now be found by asking Conductor Sam!

Because making a new journey by train can also often be both fantastic and simple - if you know where you can go and how you can get there.

Sam is an advanced AI chatbot trained on a vast database of rail travel information.
With access to thousands of answers curated by ShowMeTheJourney - And the ability to follow this website's carefully chosen selection of links for further information, Conductor Sam is your one-stop solution for all things rail travel.

We're proud of the beta (test) version, so we couldn't wait to share it.
Plus we wanted to see what questions Sam has been asked, by people other than us - and more importantly how Sam has, or hasn't, answered them.
While Sam is new and still learning along with us, we're checking daily how we can improve the response for the next occurrence of a similar question.
That's because Sam is an AI tool that's being controlled by ShowMeTheJourney, we're not just pointing Sam at a cloud of info and hoping for the best.

Conductor Sam is your personal rail expert, ready to assist with the likes of:

• How do I get from A to B by train - and A and B don't have to be stations?
• Do I have a choice of journey options?
• How can I buy a ticket and from where?
• What about seat reservations?
• What's at the station?
• Which facilities are available on a type of train service?
• Which 'rules' do I need to know about?
• Is the journey scenic and what can I see?

More than a question and answer service

Though what makes Sam special is that, more often than not, it can also guide you towards more info and/or the next steps required, to make that desired journey actually happen.

• Ask a question about a route and you'll often see which agents sell the rail tickets - And be linked to them.
• Need to know what's by a major station? You'll often see a list of the nearby hotels, plus a link to book a stay.
• Want to know about one of the 1000 most popular European rail journeys? You will nearly always be linked to a guide which includes info on the stations, trains and how to buy a ticket.

New features

Since we launched the beta version, we've reacted to what was being asked and now most of the time, Sam can:

• Find a journey from or to a country, there's no need to specify a city.
• Produce the relevant info for a popular rail journey in many countries which don't have info guides on the website, including travel in the likes of Finland, Greece and Ireland.
• Answer questions about rail journeys between thousands of locations, which don't have station guides on ShowMeTheJourney.
• Provide info for taking many routes that require an overnight stay.
• Answer questions about routes which begin or conclude with a bus journey.
• Show a journey to and from a location, such as a museum, sports stadium, or music venue - but not always, as this is particularly tricky.

While Conductor Sam is still new, what's becoming clear is:

• If you ask a question more than once, by changing one or two words, Sam can then usually give an even more detailed response - because there's always more than one way of providing an answer.
• If you need more information than the summary Sam has initially given you, try starting 'A new conversation'.
• If Sam has half answered your question, click on links provided for in-depth information - this can be a quicker and easier method of finding out what you want to know, compared to asking another question.
• If you want to know more than one thing, you'll be more likely to find a good answer by making repeat queries, rather than asking one long question.
  Though if you want to go to multiple locations, you can try including each A to B journey in the one question, because Sam can often string together the key info about your itinerary.

Sam isn't a journey planning tool, so if you know the route you want to take and at what time and date, you'll find the options and tickets more easily on a booking agent, such as Trainline, RailEurope or Omio.

Also Sam isn't so useful at answering questions about dynamic info that changes in real-time, such as the prices of discounted train tickets, or whether a particular train is departing or running to schedule.

If you need to know about how train services are being impacted by out of the ordinary events such as extreme weather, or actions by railway company employees, you can find the links to services, which show up-to-date events, on the Country guides.

The over use of Regional Trains

And one quirk of Sam at the current time, is the labelling of some long-distance express train services as Regional Trains.
To make Sam work it is targeted at third party resources, which provide maps, locations, timetables etc - but they inevitably don't have the depth of knowledge about rail travel that SMTJ does, though we are all on the AI learning curve.

Your feedback is crucial in making Conductor Sam even better.
Use the "Good" and "Bad" buttons after each response to let us know how we're doing, as we're continuously working to enhance Sam's knowledge and capabilities.

If you found the answer particularly useful, please click 'Good' and then Sam should provide the same quality of answer each time a similar question is asked.

Though what we really want to know about is when Sam doesn't get things quite right.
So if you're confused by what Sam is showing you, or spot a mistake, you'll be given the opportunity to tell us, by using the message box that becomes available when clicking the 'Bad' button.
It will be super useful - and mutually beneficial, for us to be made aware of info on ShowMeTheJourney, which needs to be updated.

Aside from constantly improving the core information service, some of the things we want to be able to do with, and because of, Conductor Sam are:

• Enabling conversations, by adding easy 'Do you want to know more about this? buttons etc.
• Including relevant images, so that you can see what Sam is describing.
• We need to ask for an email address, so that we can ensure that Sam is being used genuinely. Hence a plan is to send Sam users relevant and pertinent info - such as tickets for 'x' journeys have now been released, or the 'y' train service has now resumed.
• Producing more guides on ShowMeTheJourney to the things which Sam is most often asked about.