According to Smith, online journey planners apply a blunt logic which causes problems with search results.  “Journey planners are automatically programmed to try to minimise journey time. But by doing this, they sometimes add extra changes of train that save only minutes off a journey of several hours. The system ignores the more convenient options,” he says. 

Gaps between the arrival of a train and the departure of a next one can also fall foul of the website algorithms, meaning that instead of being shown a longer, possible journey, the traveller is shown no option at all. 

“They’re incapable of adding the journey paddling that a human being would if it was planning the journey. This problem is worse for people trying to travel further distances by rail,” says Smith.

“Train operators across Europe are not always as joined up as they should be in terms of timetabling and selling tickets, which makes booking a journey across multiple European countries unhelpfully complex at times,” agrees Rory Boland, Editor of Which? Travel. 

“Many of us would like to swap planes for trains when travelling to Europe and this would be helped by travellers being given clearer information on how to book the most convenient journeys.”

How to dodge the system and find Europe’s hidden rail journeys

London to the French Alps

Rail-booking website used: Trainline

Destination: London to Bourg St Maurice

Advertised journey time and changes: 10 hours and 52 minutes in total, changing train at both Lyon and Paris

Actual journey time and changes: 10hours and 26 minutes, with only a change in Paris

The detail: Bourg St Maurice is a hugely popular destination in the French Alps, but the Trainline website offered only a journey with an extra, unnecessary change of train, rendering the journey longer too.