Rambus is working with West Midlands Trains to support the rollout of smart ticketing across its rail network. This new deployment will help deliver a modern smart travel experience for passengers with Rambus’ interoperable ticketing solution acting as the backbone of the deployment.
Smart ticketing can drive greater use of public transport by improving the travel experience for passengers. Compared with traditional paper based ticketing, going ‘smart’ delivers multiple benefits by offering a secure and easier way to access ticketing.
Rambus are providing West Midlands Trains with a secure interoperable back office transaction engine called a HOPS, which plays a key part of a smart ticketing deployment. It processes transaction data from customer ticket purchases and journey validations along with data from hardware terminals including those at station. The Rambus Card Management System (CMS) is also being implemented and gives the operator access to a range of tools and data that enables customer support and card issuance. Additionally, staff will be able to check passenger smart tickets and pay-as-you-go balances on their smartphones, through the Rambus Smart Ticket Checker app.
Rambus’s Partnership with West Midlands Trains
West Midlands Trains is operated by the Dutch state-owned rail operator Abellio and its Japanese partners East Japan Railway Company (otherwise known as JR East) and Mitsui. Rambus is enabling smart ticketing across its 178 stations in England, and the operator is investing £1 billion into its network after winning the West Midlands franchise in 2017.
“At the heart of our new franchise is the drive to develop smart ticketing for our customers,” says Paul Matthews, head of Revenue & Ticketing at West Midlands Trains Ltd. “We have benefitted greatly from the speed and proficiency in which Rambus delivered the West Midlands HOPS and CMS, all achieved in time to meet the commitments of our franchise.”
Scalable solutions for a national ticketing system
The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) brings together the companies that run Britain’s railway into a single team with one goal – to deliver a better railway for passengers and their communities. RDG chose Rambus to support its wider rollout of smart ticketing across the rail operators in England. Multiple train operating companies are already using with others currently migrating to the RDG HOPS back office system which is provided by Rambus. This provides the individual rail operators an easy migration path to move from their existing systems in future.
“Robust scalable systems that deliver a truly reliable ticketing experience for passengers and operators is essential to support the wider adoption of smart ticketing,” said Russell McCullagh, Vice President and General Manager of Rambus Ticketing. “We’re delighted to be working with West Midlands Trains and supporting another rail customer taking us one step closer towards a wider smart transport network across the UK.”
The Bottom Line
Through its interoperable smart ticketing solutions, Rambus is continuing to make data safer and faster for passengers and operators. Operators can gain valuable insights from the secure journey data captured which will help them deliver services and ticket products based on customers actual travel needs. They can deliver easier access to travel as customers can purchase tickets and top-up online, meaning less reliance on ticket desks and ticket vending machines at station. Passengers can beat the queues and self-serve which gives them greater control of managing their travel at a time and place that suits them.
Rambus ticketing solutions are based on open standards which provide secure, interoperable and scalable smart card and mobile based ticketing.
Read our product brief/contact us to learn how we can help with your ticketing requirements
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