EP1264282B1 - Computer-assisted ticketing system with multiple operators - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention concerns computer-assisted ticketing systems with multiple operators, which consists in providing the stations (103) enabling access to services (telephone or banking or public transport), with means (106), called consulate for separately processing data read on a ticket (105) issued by another operator. The links between the consulate and the validator are reduced to a minimum so that the data concerning the ticket validation processing cannot be known by one or the other of the operators. It enables to provide interoperability through safe, discreet and decentralised means.

Description

The present invention relates to ticketing systems for transport networks that can be operated simultaneously by several operators in a manner transparent to the user.

The term "ticketing system" is understood to mean a system in which one has a dual association 1 transaction-1 contract (this is the case for example with transport network systems) or a multiple association 1 contract - n transactions (ie that every time there is a transaction, there is a reference to a general contract, that passed with an operator).

The invention therefore applies to any transaction system that can be operated by several operators. The invention applies to transport networks.

It enables an operator's customers to use the services and / or infrastructures of another operator in a transparent manner for the user.

In the case of public transport systems, the customers of several carriers will be able to use either the means of transport of these operators with tickets issued indifferently by these operators and used without distinction on each means of transport.

We know that in the service delivery systems offered by large operators to the public, there are different modes of exploitation allowing operators to have a more or less captive clientele.

One of the big problems today is the use of public transport by users who want, from a ticket bought for example from a railway company, then to use the subway, then a bus. .. and even any combination of these different means of transport, operated or not by different operators.

Currently, for individual tickets the trend of different carriers is to sell each their ticket for their portion of travel. This solution is clearly not satisfactory. It would be even less so for subscriptions, which led to the introduction of "orange card" type systems.

The distribution of revenue from this subscription system is on a statistical basis, always subject to caution.

There is therefore a serious problem of interoperability, this term being defined as the possibility for a user, from a ticket or a subscription ticket purchased from the carrier that suits him best, to be able to use all other carriers in his area, within the time and distance limits defined by the original ticket.

It will be noted that this problem has been solved in the case of bank cards (of the "blue card" type), but the adopted solution, of the pyramid type, includes a single operator which federates all the banking parties and which remains anonymous for the first time. 'user. This one uses a card issued by his bank, which in fact is common to everyone and is distinguished only by decorative aspects. EP-A-380377 describes a similar system in the field of public transport.

This system has the disadvantage of requiring good agreement between all the federated parties in the joint body. This good agreement is obtained only at the price of a certain erasure of the smallest partners. It still leads to a lack of flexibility and responsiveness to desirable concrete developments.

To overcome these disadvantages of these systems, which we describe as "ticketing", the invention proposes a ticketing system for multi-operator transport networks according to claim 1.

According to another characteristic, the second means are physically included in the first means.

According to another characteristic, the second means are physically external to the first means.

According to another characteristic, the system is applied to a public transport system.

In this case, the tickets are information carriers such as tickets with magnetic stripe, plastic or cardboard, or smart cards contact or contactless.

• La figure 1 représente le schéma synoptique simplifié d'un système selon l'invention.

Other features and advantages of the invention will become clear in the following description, given by way of non-limiting example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

• FIG. 1 represents the simplified block diagram of a system according to the invention.

The invention applies to all transport systems that can be operated by several operators as mentioned above, since a ticketing system is understood to mean a system in which there is a dual association 1 transaction-1 contract or in the case of situations where one is in a multiple situation 1 contract - n transactions (that is, whenever there is a transaction, there is reference to a general contract).

In addition to simplify, we use the term "ticket" for any means, physical or otherwise, allowing access to a system of "ticketing" as defined above. Various possible forms are illustrated from the examples of applications of the invention given below.

FIG. 1 shows the block diagram of a ticketing system according to the invention, in a variant limited to the case where an operator Y accepts the clients of an operator X.

Figure 1 will be described about a transport network system.

In this simple version, the operator Y has a central station 101 which regulates the entire system. This central station is connected by links 102 to a set of remote stations 103 in which the services operate. For the sake of clarity, the central station 101 is located in the centralized service building of a city bus company, and the stations 103 are the validators 110 located in the buses, which allow the access of the passengers to these buses. Depending on the size of the business, the single links shown in the figure will be branched, with concentrators and intermediate processors.

In the ordinary operation of the operator Y, a customer of this operator Y who appears on the bus validates his ticket 104 issued by Y, a contactless smart card for example, by presenting it to the validator 110. validator recognizes the ticket, tests its validity, date, route ..., and authorizes the passage of the traveler, for example by lighting a green light. In other circumstances, such as for access to a metro station, the validator would actuate for example a turnstile.

Although it is conceivable to use a validator provided with a minimum of intelligence and effective validation at the central 101 after transmission of data via the link 102, and retransmission of the authorization by the same link, the most used solution is to provide the validator with enough intelligence, that is to say a computer sufficiently powerful and provided with sufficient memory, to deal with the problem of validation locally in the station 103 itself.

The problem of interoperability is that a traveler with a ticket 105 issued by the other operator X receives the validator 110 authorization access on the bus after presenting his ticket 105, without the processing resulting in the issuance of this authorization by the system Y be carried out by this system itself in the same way as the processing resulting in the issue of the authorization given to the bearer of the ticket 104.

Indeed, such a method of processing would allow the operator Y to know all the commercial policy of the operator X, as well as the characteristics, possibly nominative, of a large part of the customers of X. It could for example determine that some customers of the operator X benefit from a particularly advantageous tariff and are important consumers, that it would be interesting to solicit directly.

It is therefore proposed to delimit in station 103 a subset 106, that for the sake of convenience we will call in the remainder of this text "consulate".

According to the embodiments of the invention, this consulate 106 may be formed of hardware means and / or software resources distributed in a variable manner according to the needs of the implementation and / or the needs of the separate operators. The bottom line is that the consulate 106 constitutes a structure sufficiently isolated from the rest of the station so that the exchanges between these two parts are strictly limited by the will of the two operators, in such a way that neither can have access to the confidential data contained in the part reserved for the other.

According to other examples, the consulate may be in the central 101 or between the central and the stations.

The consulate 106 thus includes all that is necessary to be able to decode the information contained on the ticket 105 issued by the operator X and to validate the access on board the bus of the passenger provided with this ticket 105.

The part of the station 103 reserved for the operator Y does not include in addition to the situation where there is no consulate in this station, only the strictly necessary elements, a few lines of computer code for example, to be able to carry out the exchanges with the consulate 106, which are very simplified.

In more detail, when the validator 110 finds that the ticket 105 which is presented to him is a ticket from the operator X, he transmits immediately to the consulate 106 the information which is read on this ticket, and which in principle has no meanings for him since the essential data, the type of transport contract for example, may very well be represented by only a few bytes whose meaning is known only to the operator X, said information may be accompanied by logistical data such as date and place.

The operator X then carries out its validation processing, which in principle is similar to that performed by the validator 110 for the tickets 104, and transmits to the validator the acceptance, or possibly the refusal, of the on-board access. 'bus. The validator then authorizes, or refuses, access to the traveler.

If necessary, for complex transport systems, this acceptance is supplemented by some data making it possible to further qualify the type of service rendered by the operator Y to the traveler of the operator X, for example a distance indication of the journey made.

These data are then transmitted to the central station 101, either directly or in deferred time, after storage in the day for example, by the link 102. They will then be transmitted from the central station 101 of the operator Y to the central station 201 of the operator X, so that it can manage its own customers and pay the operator Y for services rendered to these same customers. This payment is made according to an agreed method, which essentially consists of defining a particular tariff for each service rendered by the operator Y to the customers of the operator X. This corresponds to a particular pricing between the operator X and the operator Y , without the commercial agreements agreed between the operator X and his own customers intervene, or are known to the operator Y.

In the figure, this transmission has been represented by a link 107 of the central station 101 to the central station 201, but in practice it can be done by any other means, for example by exchange of magnetic tapes, as is practiced between the banks. for clearing transactions.

The consulate 106 therefore includes a certain number of data, for example tariffs, which may vary more or less frequently. In the example described for a bus transport system, these changes are relatively infrequent, but they can be much more so in other applications, for example in cell phone telecommunication systems.

To facilitate the updating of these data, it is further proposed to make them transit from the central station 201 of the operator X to the consulate 106 contained in the terminal stations 103 via the central station 101 of the operator Y and its links 102 with stations 103.

For this, these data, and more generally all the programming of the consulate 106, are transmitted from the central station 201 to the central station 101 via a link 108, which is here represented wired as the link 107, but which can also use other means such as a tape exchange. This data will then be retransmitted by the central station 101 to the consulate 106 via the links 102 and the other organs of the station 103.

Of course, to maintain the confidentiality of this data, for which this entire system has been designed, this communication will be via a known type of encryption system. For example, a security application module known as SAM will be used.

It is also proposed to use such a SAM system to send, from the consulate 106 to the central station 201, a certain amount of data relating to the customers provided with the ticket 105 and whose operator X does not wish them to be known. of the operator Y.

It is clear that, as described, the system requires a minimum of hardware and software compatibility between the X operator and operator Y ticketing systems.

Thus, in this example the notes 104 and 105 must be of the same type for the reader to be common. Similarly, the consulate must operate under the same operating system as the rest of station 103.

The invention is however not limited to a compatibility so close. It extends to systems where the hardware and software would be much more different, but accepting a complication of realization and a cost all the greater as this difference is accentuated.

One could thus have a ticket 104 to read without contact and a ticket 105 with magnetic reading, thus requiring two separate readers. In this case, the outputs of the readers could be connected to a validator 110 and a consulate 106 physically. distinct, only connected by links allowing the minimum of exchanges described above.

This solution would increase the security vis-à-vis the intrusions of an operator by the other, but it is immediately apparent that it causes a material proliferation quite unattractive.

This material profusion will be all the less interesting because we will no longer be dealing with two operators X and Y, as described above, but with a set of operators X, Y, Z ..., situation in which the invention applies perfectly since it is then sufficient to have a consulate by external operator. This situation is rather infrequent in the case of public transport, but it can be much more common in other applications in the field of transport of the invention.

In practice, given the standardization currently existing suppliers of the elements used to build the system, it is easy and without disadvantages to avoid such profusion.

Claims (5)

1. A ticketing system for multi-operator transport networks comprising first means (103) specific to a first operator for acquiring the content of a ticket (104) or season ticket issued by this operator and for authorising a service according to the information required, characterised in that it also comprises second means (106) for decoding the information when it comes from a ticket (105) or season ticket issued by another operator, for validating access to the said service and for transmitting to the first means a simple authorisation to render the said service according to the information and processed in a manner specific to the said second means.
2. A system according to claim 1, characterised in that the second means (106) are physically included in the first means (103).
3. A system according to claim 1, characterised in that the second means (106) are physically external to the first means (103).
4. A system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterised in that it is applied to a public transport system.
5. A system according to claim 4, characterised in that the tickets or season tickets are information media such as magnetic-strip tickets, plastic or cardboard, or chip cards of the contact or contactless type.

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