The UIC held the kick-off meeting to administer the STAR project, co-funded by the European Commission. The objective of the project is to support the TAP TSI Phase II project to implement the ‘Telematics Specification for Interoperability, Telematics Applications for Passenger Services,’ European Regulation 454/2011.
Currently, many underlying information systems cannot communicate with each other. Therefore, the objective of the TAP TSI is to define European-wide procedures and interfaces between railway actors that will lead to an interoperable and cost-efficient information exchange. The TAP TSI establishes the legal framework that enables the provision of high-quality journey information and ticket distribution to passengers in a cost-effective manner.
The STAR Project addresses the development (Phase II) of the TAP TSI implementation. The effort builds upon existing investment and activity by introducing common European specifications for rail ticketing, operations management and information systems in order to support integration within the Union.
The TAP TSI Phase I project delivered the baseline standards through the implementation preparation in 2012. As a follow-up, STAR addresses six main activities, as listed below:

• Project Management Office charged with reporting and overall project administration.
• Establishment of Sustainable Governance to establish the permanent governance for the TAP TSI in order to provide the regulatory services needed by the stakeholders and third parties.
• Operational Management Systems addressing the underlying technical documents and implementation guidelines for operations – notably, joint RU/IM functions such as sharing Train Running Information and Path Requests.
• Registry and Data Quality Tools comprising the definition and development of two specific baseline IT applications that are required for the accelerated implementation of the TSI (timetables, tariffs, access rights…).
• Retail Reference Data defining location codes, company codes and code lists that will be used for quality data exchange.
• Full Service Model (FSM) defining the end-to-end distribution and customer support requirements for rail journeys as a common standard for railways, distributors and ticket vendors. The FSM also aims at better integrating passenger information and ticketing related to other modes of transport. The FSM activity is a voluntary workstream of interested railways and ticket vendors in the context of TAP TSI and goes beyond the current regulation requirements. It therefore forms its own governance structure while at the same time maintaining a close relationship with the TAP TSI organisation.