On the morning of Thursday 14 January, 76 tariff and IT experts from CP, SJ, SilverRail, NS, Entur, SBB, DB, PKP, SNCB, Avancial-SNCF, MAV, RZD, SŽ, JSC, HŽPP, ÖBB, VR, BGD, Thalys, FS Tech, CFR, ČD, ZSSK, DSB, TrainOSE and UZ met online to learn about the new OSDM platform processes.

The UIC OSDM platform will be one of the first steps in making the vision of providing seamless train sales and after-sales processes a reality, thus supporting an increased role for rail travel in the 21st century. UIC’s objective is to have the OSDM platform available to railways in June 2021. The OSDM platform will be provided as a Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud-based solution. Its architecture will enable the ongoing introduction of future UIC services related to the distribution of tariff and price data. The technical components of the solution are deployed in a fully virtual, enterprise-grade cloud environment.

To facilitate a smooth technical transition from the old PRIFIS to the new OSDM platform, Clemens Gantert, UIC PSS chair, presented the GitHub OSDM converter available on the GitHub website: https://unioninternationalcheminsdefer.github.io/OSDM/. He began by explaining the successive steps and the parameters required to convert the current 108.1 file into OSDM JSON files. He then demonstrated the opposite process of transforming the OSDM data format file into the 108.1 format in order to feed international tariff railway distribution IT systems.

Following these theoretical explanations, Sören Meyer, tariff expert at Deutsche Bahn, showed the audience how he converts DB tariff data to the new OSDM format. Multiple parameters need to be adapted for swift conversion. Hans Inge Letnes, IT expert at Entur, then demonstrated the use of an IT tool to convert Norwegian Rail tariffs to the new OSDM file format.

A Q&A session provided European tariff experts with a better understanding of converter use and the complexity of the parameters.

The experts will meet again for a second workshop on 27 April.