Further to the success of the previous workshop held in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 24 - 25 October 2012, the second edition of the UIC e-ticketing workshop took place in Utrecht, Netherlands from 21 to 22 May 2015 at NS Headquarters.

The event was jointly organised by UIC (International Union of Railways) in cooperation with CIT, the International Rail Transport Committee, NS, the National Railways of Netherlands, and supported by Mastercard.

Travelling by train has been changed by technology and railway companies face the task of developing new systems of ticketing in order to reduce costs and meet customer expectations. According to this evolution, the aim of the workshop was to look for an optimal solution to make travelling by train more attractive in every possible way and to allow participants to learn about the latest tendencies in this field:

The objectives of this two-day workshop were to:

• Provide a vision of the current e-ticketing world from a legal, a commercial and a
  technical point of view;
• Get up-to-date with the major sector initiatives in e-ticketing;
• Learn about new technologies that will significantly impact ticketing strategies;
• Understand the legal and regulatory requirements for e-ticketing and how to manage them;
• Review the benefits of standards in e-ticketing;
• Work together with other experts on resolving key e-ticketing issues.

Participants were managers, experts, decision makers in e-ticketing from legal, commercial, and technical departments as well as ticket vendors, railway companies and consultancies.

Mr Luis Casado, Senior Advisor within the UIC Passenger Department, thanked the participants on behalf of UIC and the CIT for attending the event and expressed his delight at welcoming almost 90 attendees from all over the world.

Mr Maarten Bakker, of behalf of NS management, welcomed participants to the NS premises and wished them a successful meeting.

The event provided an opportunity to learn about the recent developments in e-ticketing. The main themes of Day 1 were on strategic topics on Technologies and Rail Ticketing Innovation:

• Mastercard Solutions for Railways: Andrew Slattery, Mastercard
• Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) on the Service of E-ticketing: Jeremy Acklam (GTA)
• Host Card Emulation (NCE) a Solution for NFC Ticketing: John Elliott (CHYP)
• An Overview about E-ticketing from Ticket Vendors: Klaus Kreher (Travelport)
• The Universal Railway Ticketing: David Sarfatti (UIC)
• NS Technologies on E-ticketing: Joost Mortier (NS)
• New Developments of NFC: Nicolas Generali (SNCF)
• New Developments of Touch and Travel: Ruetger Fenkes (DB)

The third part of the Day 1 dealt with the legal setting for e-ticketing and was presented by Ms Tetyana Payosova, CIT Legal Advisor. She spoke about the legal requirement for e- tickets and the need to have coherence between ticketing requirements, concerning the legal, functional and technical specifications. The subject of data protection was then presented by Mrs Victorine Kossi from the Legal Department of DB. She highlighted the importance of privacy and data minimisation in e-ticketing.

Day 2 was dedicated to workshops, analysis and discussions. Participants were offered the possibility to participate in two out of eight different groups, chaired by experts in their field discussing e-ticketing concerns related to commercial, legal and technical issues.

The day began with the Panel Discussion to introduce the workshops. The proposed topics were as follows:

• Can national transport smartcards be used for international rail tickets? By
  Chris Querée, ATOC
• Is NFC needed as we already have barcode tickets? Moderated by David Sarfatti, UIC
• Are international transport-owning groups more interested in ticketing standards than domestic railways? By Ruetger Fenkes, DB
• Has the internet removed the need for a ticket “issuer”? By Luis Casado, UIC
• Does e-ticketing remove the need for a central settlement clearing function? By Kurt de Vriendt, UIC
• Can we integrate IRT and NRT and just use ART - all rail tickets? By Fabrice Setta, UIC
• Should all long-distance ticketing use airline-style e-ticketing? By Clemens Gantert, DB SYSTEL
• Do your e-tickets conform with the requirements of the international rail transport law? By Tetyana Payosova and Jan Svensson, CIT

Finally, Mr Querée addressed the audience to summarise what had been done over the last two days. Mr Casado and Ms Payosova thanked the participants for their active participation and the people involved in the organisation for the perfect working conditions and invited the representatives of the different companies to the next edition of the e-ticketing workshop in the following years.