II.

Budapest Smart Ticketing & Transport Forum,

30th June – 1st July, 2016
Budapest

Seamless travel:
Bridging the gap between vision and reality

MSc Dušan Zalar,

Ministry for Infrastructure,
Republic of Slovenia
 Seamless travel

• What is seamless travel?

– Seamless travel is a travel without any disturbance.
– Seamless travel is a travel without any stressful experience.
– Seamless travel offers the best passenger experience.
End-to-end passenger experience is related to all phases of the trip, from
initial planning to arrival at the destination

• Why is passenger experience important?

– Puts passenger in the focus (consumer centric).
– Is directly related to the attractiveness of the public transport.
Public transport agencies devote a lot of attention to the attractiveness
of public transport in order to attract new and retain existing passengers
(increase ridership).

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 The vision

• Public transport should be accesible (network design), available

(time tables) and affordable (pricing policy). Seamless travel
should be implemented through all country (urban and rural
areas).

• Transport ticketing and related technologies (passenger

information system, payment system, in-door and out-door
navigation, …) should be used as a method to offer the best
passenger experience.

• Different technologies may be used (transport cards, payment

cards, identity cards, mobile phones, …) to acchieve maximum
satisfaction for all passenger groups (regular, frequent, occasional;
pupils, students, seniors, disabled; …).
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 The reality

• All operators in Slovenia have implemented smart card ticketing

based on MiFare technology (proprietary closed systems)

• Transport ticketing technology is provided by four local suppliers

• Slovenian public transport network is ungated, regardless of

transport mode

• Contactless smart card issued by one operator is accepted only by

issuing operator and chosen transport mode

• In most cases contactless smart card is a dedicated transport card

(can not be used for other purposes)
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 The gap

• Organizational gap
– Slovenia has no common body for coordination of public transport and
consequently of a countrywide single ticket implementation
– There is a lack of cooperation between transport authorities,
especially between central and local government authorities

• Technology gap
– Functionality of implemented ticketing systems is limited, all of them
are card based, none is multioperator or multimodal

• Financial (public funds) gap

– The volume and value of sold tickets in Slovenia are relatively small
(Slovenia has 2 milions inhabitants), costs of sofisticated countrywide
single ticket implementation can be too high
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 Measures to close the gap

• Establishment of National public transport authority

(to coordinate/manage public transport in Slovenia)

• Introduction of countrywide single ticket

(open ticketing architecture to avoid technology and supplier lock)

• Establishment of National transport ticketing processor

(organization for operation and further development of a single
ticket)

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 National public transport authority

• In the beginning of 2016 a political consensus that approaches to

the establishment of the 100% state-owned company as National
public transport authority has been achieved. It is expected to be
eastablished until the end of 2017.
• National public transport authority should coordinate all public
transport authorities in Slovenia which are:
– Public Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Railway Transport
(central government authority for train service)
– Sustainable Mobility and Transport Policiy Sevice at Ministry of
Infrastructure (Central government authority for intercity - suburban
and long distance - bus service)
– Local government authorities for city bus service (Ljubljana - capital
city, Maribor, and smaller municipalities: Ptuj, Celje, Kranj, Novo
mesto, Nova gorica, Koper, Murska sobota, Slovenj Gradec and
Velenje)
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 National public transport authority

• Why state-owned company ?

– To avoid limitations of government personnel plan

– To avoid government limitations of salaries for public workers
– To allow all stakeholders (public transport authorities, public
transport operators and passenger associations) later to enter into
ownership
– Management of public transport is an economic and not administrative
activity (cca. 150 mio€/year)
– To change the financing of operating costs from direct (public budget)
to indirect (small portion of fare price)
– To limit the political interference and influence to the necessary level

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 Countrywide single ticket

• In 2007 Slovenia launched an Integration of public transport

project. The project is EU funded and must be completed in 2016.

• The main goal of the project is to increase the use of public

transport through
– harmonization of time tables,
– harmonization of fares and
– introduction of single ticket.
• Two bids were submitted to the public tender. After several years
of complaints, the consortium consisting of Slovenian companies
PI, LPP, MarProm and SŽ in 2015 won the contract. The consortium
is led by Slovenian Railways. Consortium has chosen Slovenian
company Margento as a subcontractor for single ticket
implementation.
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 Countrywide single ticket
- Implementation
• The same ticketing media (MiFare DESFire EV1 contactless smart
card) will be accepted by all public transport operators and all
modes of public transport - train, intercity bus and city bus
regardless of public transport authority- local or central
• A simple ticketing scheme is in development for the single ticket
(common platform, security and data model) which will be
prescribed by central government, all operators should be required
to use it
• Single ticket is supporting existing data model and new prescribed
common data model (dual data model) for gradually
implementation of all common ticket types regarding the volume
• Regular and student season tickets are prepared for the pilot
operation (majority of tickets are student season tickets).

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 Countrywide single ticket
- National transport card scheme (NTCS)
• Definition:
The national public transport card scheme is a prescribed set of rules and
technical specifications by the central government and managed by
national public transport authority for the execution of transport
ticketing transactions based on selected ticketing media such as smart
cards etc. that have to be followed by ticket resellers, public transport
operators and local public transport authorities.

– Initial and pre-production version of the NTCS was already prepared

for pilot operation (in August 2016)
– For countrywide operaton a production version of the NTSC will be
prepared (from September 2016)
– The final version of the NTSC (available before end of 2016) will be a
part of future contracts for public transport services

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 National transport ticketing processor

• Why separate company?

– To minimize government intervention (funding, technical

standardization)

– To enable capital investment for fast introduction of new disruptive

ticketing technologies

– To lower the cost of fare collection through real market (ticketing as a

service, economies of scale)

– Transport ticketing will soon no longer be an extension of the

transport operator or transport authority, ticketing will become a
separate, self-aware part of the value chain

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 Lessons learned

• Countrywide single ticket introduction is very complex and thus slow

process. Technology selection is probably the simplest act in the process.

• Countrywide single ticket does not mean a single ticket type but a family
of types.

• Avoding technology and supplier lock (open ticketing architecture)

requires significant expert knowledge.

• Organizing National public transport authority requires a huge political

and professional effort.

• Organizing National transport ticketing processor seems at the moment

unrealistic.

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 Challenges and opportunities in Slovenia

• Single ticket and student card integration

• Contactless payment cards integration

• NFC mobile ticketing integration

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 Single ticket and student card integration

• All universities in Slovenia have began issuing a unified student

card for the school year 2013/2014

• Student card enables visual and electronic

– identification of the cardholder and
– verification of the student status of the cardholder

• Identification and verification can be done off-line, personal data

and data about the study are recorded on the card

• Student card is a multi-application card based on MiFare DESFire

technology, universities are willing for hosting other applications
including public transport
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 Single ticket and student card
- Basic facts and requirements
• Personal data and data about the study recorded on the card
enable the verification of eligibility of the subsidy
- Student status
- Temporary or permanent residence (address)
- School organization (address)

• Technology options
- Multi-application card based ticketing
- Account based ticketing

• Student card should be a secondary ticketing media

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 Contactless payment cards integration

• Slovenia has prepared preliminary analysis about the possibility of

using bank cards in transport ticketing within the Framework for
electronic single ticketing standard as a part of Integration of
public transport project in 2010

• It is not clear that the operating cost of open loop payment

transport ticketing (3%-6%) is lower than traditional card based
transport ticketing (10%-15%)

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 Contactless payment cards
- Basic facts and requirements
• From 2015 contactless payment cards are regular cards issued by
main banks in Slovenia

• Open loop ticketing should operate in parallel with existing

ticketing systems, contactless bank card should be a secondary
ticketing media

• Simple ticket type – single ride flat fare ticket (check-in only)
should be implemented in urban areas

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 NFC mobile ticketing integration

• NFC-enabled mobile phones are just coming to Slovenian market

• At the beginning of 2014 city bus operator in capital Ljubljana has

launched NFC mobile ticketing (emulating the stored value ticket)

• Google Transit is already used by all operators (pilot operation)

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 NFC mobile ticketing
- Basic facts and requirements
• NFC mobile phone should be a secondary ticketing media

• Ticket renewal and top-up through NFC mobile phone

• Single mobile application for all operators

• Passenger information (Google Transit) integration

• One stop ticket office

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 More Information

MSc Dušan Zalar,

Ministry for Infrastructure,
Republic of Slovenia

http://si.linkedin.com/in/dusanzalar

email dusan.zalar@gov.si
dusan.zalar@gmail.com
dusan.zalar@siol.net

phone +386 1 478 8103

gsm +386 31 336 987