The idea for the application originated with two students who often struggled to buy tickets with reserved seating on specific routes. Kazimierz Lipski, a final-year computer science student at WUT, is responsible for the technical development of the application, while Weronika Pieniak, a graphic design student at the WIT Academy, developed its visual interface.

Their experiences with train travel revealed that simply adjusting the starting station—for instance, from Warszawa Central Station to Warszawa West Station—could uncover available seats. PlaceFinder is designed to find tickets with reserved seating for selected segments of a route, even when the PKP reservation system shows no availability for the entire journey. The idea for the application struck Kazimierz Lipski during a train trip two years ago. Our student wanted to know how long the seat next to him would stay unoccupied, allowing him to settle in comfortably, set up his laptop, and focus on work.

“I figured I might as well try buying the seat next to me from Warszawa Central Station to Olsztyn Główny. I checked, and it was marked as taken, so I thought, ‘Well, that’s unfortunate—someone will sit there soon.’ Then it hit me: a logical flaw—the seat doesn’t have to be taken from Warszawa Central Station, it just needs to be available for the entire trip to show up as free. So, I decided to check if the seat next to me was free from Warszawa Wschodnia to the next stop. It was. Then from Warszawa Wschodnia to Legionowo—also free. It wasn’t until Olsztynek that it was occupied. That meant I could travel nearly the entire route without issue. This was the first idea for an app to ‘check how long the seat next to you will stay free on a train,’” recalls Kazimierz Lipski.

Our student began to think about the situation from a different perspective—realizing that if he wanted to sit in the seat next to him, he wouldn’t be able to travel the entire route from Warsaw to Olsztyn, even though the seat would remain empty the whole time.

"How many empty seats are there on trains?" I started to think. Then I began noticing how many people get on for just 2-3 stops, blocking a seat for the entire 10-stop journey. The logical conclusion was to reserve the seat for the full 10 stops but make it available for a few of them. That’s when the full concept of PlaceFinder began to take shape," adds the app’s co-author.

From that point on, the path to developing the application became straightforward. 

“I can simply move to another seat in the same train for a moment or stand, and then sit for the rest of the journey," I thought. I realized that the idea is particularly useful on Pendolino trains, where standing is not allowed. My favorite route is from Kraków to Gdańsk, where tickets are often unavailable on weekends. By using our solution, I can usually just opt for a transfer in Warsaw, enabling a journey that would otherwise be impossible due to the lack of standing space. 

How exactly does PlaceFinder work?

First, you need to enter the basic details of your journey into the app: the departure and arrival stations, the date, and the exact train departure time. As the app’s creators explain, in the next step, the tool connects available seats on different segments of the train’s route, creating a personalized journey with "transfers"… between seats. It can find a seat on the train even when the carrier claims there are no available ones—by searching for specific segments of the journey where the seat is only occupied for part of the route.

The app informs the user about how long a specific seat will be available. It may also find a seat that the traveler can occupy for the entire journey. If this happens, the user will receive the relevant information and be redirected to the carrier’s website to purchase the ticket. Otherwise, the app will generate a detailed list of carriages and available seats—a transfer plan for the journey on a given route. Separate tickets must be purchased for each segment, which results in a slightly higher overall cost for the trip, but in more comfortable travel conditions. 

Although the creators are trying to engage the carrier with their idea, at this moment, the app does not allow ticket purchases—it can still only be done through the official PKP Intercity website. The interest in the app is really high—during its first weekend of operation, around All Souls' Day, more than 5,000 travelers planning their trips used it.

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank Andrzej Zalewski, PhD, for his motivational and teaching skills in the Algorithms and Data Structures course, as well as all the other instructors in my Computer Science program at the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology, whose knowledge also played a key role in the actual realization of this project," concludes the app's co-author.