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Blockchain could offer a solution to UK transport ticketing systems
A new approach to transport ticketing represents a step towards an integrated and transparent system for ticketing providers and passengers across all modes of transport.
Traditional ticketing systems are based on vulnerable solutions to problems such as lack of transferability across multimodal transport networks and the inability to adapt to political changes and new technologies.
Experts at the University of Birmingham have outlined a system that offers a new basis for all ticket providers. In a new article, published on IET BlockchainSTUB (System for Ticketing Ubiquity Within Blockchains) brings together the capabilities of two versatile technologies: blockchain and ontology.
A blockchain is a distributed ledger that records transactions in a way that ensures security, transparency and immutability. An ontology is a formal representation of the knowledge within a domain and the relationships between those concepts, used to model and manage complex information systems.
The researchers showed how both technologies could be combined to create a robust, transparent and interconnected data framework that ensures consistent and reliable shared knowledge.
Using these data structures, ticket providers can sell and validate tokenized tickets on the blockchain, ensuring universal accessibility to all providers. Ontology integration enables providers to capture and share contextual information about the transportation network, allowing providers to offer comprehensive data on routes, schedules and availability, thus simplifying the ticketing process.
The system we have designed allows ticket providers to operate in a more transparent and flexible environment, which will ultimately offer passengers a more user-friendly experience.
Dr Joe Preece, Birmingham Center for Railway Research and Education
Lead author Dr Joe Preece said: “Transportation systems around the world are becoming increasingly interconnected. Ticketing systems are key to this and there is growing interest in using smarter transport ticketing that leverages emerging technologies to overcome the limitations of traditional systems.
“The system we have designed allows ticket providers to operate in a more transparent and flexible environment, which will ultimately offer passengers a more user-friendly experience.
“STUB’s approach is not to be a single central data platform with an integrated transport policy, but rather to be a policy-agnostic approach that allows ticket providers and existing technologies to share key transport data issuing tickets and building new solutions on top of them.
“In essence, this could provide a modernized approach to the Rail Conciliation Plan, enabling multimodal ticketing, automated revenue and reimbursement allocation, and dynamic fare determination, while maintaining industry technologies that already work well .
The next step for the team will be to set up a pilot project for the technology in a regional transport network, to demonstrate its effectiveness and get feedback from ticket operators and passengers.
“A big implementation challenge will be integrating with existing ticketing infrastructure to work alongside current standardized approaches as we scale up the technology. Creating a successful pilot project will be critical to breaking down these barriers.”