S3 Passenger first inventory management system to implement OSDM standard
S3 Passenger is the first IT platform with a working Open Sales and Distribution Model (OSDM) online implementation, based on the recently completed specification designed by UIC railway carriers and ticket distributors.
After joining the initiative late 2020, Sqills contributed to the technical standard to promote interoperability. This effort has resulted in the first working OSDM implementation that will become available to S3 Passenger clients in upcoming releases.
Marc Guigon and Vittorio Carta, chair and vice-chair of OSDM respectively, say:
“For OSDM, 2020 was the year of specifying the standard, and we are now proving that 2021 can be the year of its implementation. We are excited and proud of the example Sqills has set for contributing carriers for how quick and relatively easy the OSDM-online standard can be implemented. We look forward to seeing other partners follow soon. It proves that for a capable back-end system, the OSDM-online interface covers all relevant principles. The ticket distributors in the OSDM workgroup now prepare to integrate the APIs based on this first implementation. A big step forward in the “European Year of Rail” and public transport in general as OSDM is multi-modal by design.
We are excited and proud of the example Sqills has set for contributing carriers for how quick and relatively easy the OSDM-online standard can be implemented.
Johan Nieuwerth, Sqills Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, said:
“Supporting cross-operator cooperation to improve passenger comfort and compete with car and air travel is a key priority for the public transport industry. We have embraced OSDM as a contributing factor to this goal. Not only because the standard reflects the S3 Passenger capabilities and essentially unifies the distributor-to-carrier dialogue, but it also aligns with S3’s native multi-inventory features. Now that inventory managed in S3 Passenger can be distributed via OSDM, the next step is making other carriers using OSDM available within S3 Passenger. This is an interesting option for operators using S3 Passenger who want to connect with other inventories bilaterally. Sqills will make a so-called ‘sandbox environment’ available to the OSDM workgroup. This sandbox will be powered by S3 Passenger. We believe this first step will help increase the speed of adoption of the OSDM standard.”
Supporting cross-operator cooperation to improve passenger comfort and compete with car and air travel is a key priority for the public transport industry. We have embraced OSDM as a contributing factor to this goal.
About OSDM:
The aims of the Open Sales and Distribution Model (OSDM) are twofold:
1. to substantially simplify the booking process for customers of public transport trips
2. to lower complexity and distribution costs for distributors and carriers.
OSDM strengthens rail and public transport as a convenient and ecological means of transportation by simplifying distribution. Finally, it lays a solid foundation which can be extended to the distribution of other means of transportation.
OSDM is a sector approach. The existing commercial products and online distribution/carrier systems of Railways such as BENE, CD, DB, DSB, öBB, PKP IC, RENFE, Rail Delivery Group, SBB, SJ, SNCF, Trenitalia and others as well as distribution solutions provided by Amadeus, Sabre, SilverRail, Sqills, Trainline, Travelport and others were carefully studied to guarantee interworking with this upcoming standard. Furthermore, the Hermes/Hosa ecosystem for reservations as well as existing UIC leaflets were carefully examined and considered while designing the API.
The OSDM specification consists of two parts: Offline Model and Online API. The OSDM specifications and APIs are Open Source and freely available to all parties interested at https://unioninternationalcheminsdefer.github.io/OSDM/.