Sweden is introducing a digital infrastructure for the distribution of reserved train tickets using an open standard.

For many years, public transport ticketing systems in different countries have been incompatible, often because of locally, self-developed and outdated systems. That has led to a need to modernise the underlying infrastructure, and there is now a general agreement in the railway industry that there should be an open standard for train tickets.

Sweden‘s new infrastructure will therefore be based on the international and open sales and distribution model standard (OSDM) that was developed by the International Union of Railways (UIC).

Whilst Sweden is one of the first countries in Europe to implement OSDM, it is expected that other countries will soon be in line with the CER’s (Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies) roadmap for implementing ticketing. Other countries that support the standard include Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Sweden’s choice of OSDM means:

• the booking process for travellers is simpler and easier;
• there will be less cost for the railway operators;
• there will be less dependency on particular suppliers since it will be easier to add or replace more subsystems.

The initial version of the new digital infrastructure will be introduced late next year.

Tickets for use on public local transport in Sweden use the Swedish ticket and payment standard (BoB). That was developed by the Swedish company Samtrafiken and its partners, and enables flexible ticketing solutions and secure validation of tickets.

Since 1991, almost all of Sweden’s public transport companies have also participated in Resplus which makes it possible to travel by train, bus, subway, tram, or boat using a single ticket.

Gerhard Wennerström, CEO of Samtrafiken, said: “Consumers expect European rail traffic to have a relevant range of travel products that should be easy to access. We now make it possible to meet that need and we also make it easier to develop products for their benefit.”

Johan Hammar, Product Owner Standards at Samtrafiken, added: “We look forward to managing the train tickets with a joint open standard. It simplifies the work of connecting existing and new players and will also contribute to reduced costs in the industry.”