The 15th TAG meeting took place at UIC Paris headquarters on 18 February 2014.
TAG is the UIC group dedicated to rail ticketing. It is composed of experts from UIC members.
TAG participants maintain and develop UIC leaflet 918-2 to guarantee the interoperability between issuers and train inspectors for international journey tickets. The UIC 918-2 leaflet is synchronized with ERA TAP-TSI technical document B6.
The regular ticket paper standard is RCT2 and new standards are defined: RCCST (Rail Credit Card Size Ticket) and URT (Universal Rail Ticket for a mobile ticketing solution).
The group meets three times a year just before the TAP-MD meeting (Telematics Applications for Passengers Maintenance and Development).
UIC members represented in this meeting were: CD, DB, MAV, SJ, RZD, Trenitalia and ZSSK. David Sarfatti (UIC TAG chairman) led the working session. CIT was represented by Thomas Gyger. UIC Headquarters was represented by Marc Guigon (Senior Advisor for Passenger Transport) and Fabrice Setta (Senior Advisor IT Standardisation).
The main points which were discussed in this TAG meeting were:
- The RCCST (Rail Credit Card Size Ticket)
The RCCST standard is not mandatory to implement. Nevertheless it must be accepted for control by railways. The combination of UIC and CIT new leaflets allow the convergence of local, regional, national and international on Rail Credit Card Size Ticket printed on a more secure paper.
ZSSK already implements the RCCST layout for domestic journeys and is testing for international journeys. CFF-SBB is planning to implement the RCCST layout when its new printers are deployed.
This new UIC Standard is published in UIC leaflet 918-2 version 6, published in January 2013.
- New UIC barcode version 3
The new barcode on secured paper will first increase security and protect against fraud (90% of forged rail tickets are InterRail tickets) and opening the station gates in the Netherlands.
The workgroup chooses a highly secure encryption process (SHA-224, DSA, 2048) which hash all data with the SHA-2 224 algorithm and then crypt the result with the DSA 2048 asymmetric cryptosystem (private-public key).
TAG defines a new barcode version 3 with a header. This barcode has 20 sub version for international tickets types and 10 for domestic purposes.
Eurail, NS, SNCB and ZSSK are already implementing the Barcode V3.
This new UIC Standard is published in UIC leaflet 918-2 version 7, published in January 2014.
- UIC Public Key Management Website (UIC PKMW)
To simplify the distribution of public keys to train inspectors (TCO), a decision was taken to have a central website.
The UIC Technical Group meeting in September 2013 validated the solution.
Only one UIC administrator should be allowed to upload issuer public keys and everybody will have access to the public keys in download.
The website should be ready for use in April 2014.
- CIT clarification request
For legal reasons and better clarity for the railway customer, CIT asked UIC TAG representatives to study and asses the impacts on their IT systems of a better printing of carrier codes and labels on the layout.
- UIC Universal Rail Ticket (UIC URT)
A mobile ticketing solution is being considered for rail tickets on smart phones. http://uic.org/com/uic-e-news/378
The new URT workgroup is a temporary TAG sub-group which will meet nine times, once a month from November 2013 to July 2014.
The Universal Rail Ticket will be specified for all ticket types (NRT, IRT, Rail Passes, ..) and all support (paper, print@home and paperless).
The next 2014 TAG session will take place at Paris UIC headquarters on Monday 23 June.
