FasTIS — The Fastest Ticketing System

In the UK, where railways are the lifeblood of the nation’s transport industry and millions of pounds are spent each year on business and leisure travel, train operating companies (TOCs) and travel agents alike share the goal of promoting rail travel. As a result, there is a strong focus on service and how it can be improved to meet customer expectations. By drilling down further, the rail industry has recognized improvements are needed at the ticket office and today train operators are taking their cue from the retail industry by pursuing rapid ticket retailing technology.

The newest entry in the UK rail retailing business is FasTIS, a state-of-the-art ticket issuing system designed by Cubic and introduced at the recent Business Travel Show held at London Olympia. To arrive at the system design, Cubic used its expertise derived from the Cubic system used in 300 Prestige London Underground ticket offices coupled with its experience gained from Cubic’s previously supplied National Rail APTIS machine. Cubic also consulted with UK TOCs and travel agents about new features they would like to see incorporated. Judging by reactions of the industry users in attendance, FasTIS delivers what users are seeking.

For use by National Rail booking offices and travel trades, FasTIS improves the customer experience by streamlining ticketing issuing and reducing queues at the point of sale. The flexible and user-friendly ticket issuing system is PC-based (runs on Windows 2000 and above), compliant with Chip & PIN technologies for ensuring the security of credit and debit card transactions and Euro-ready to facilitate changeover as dictated by legislation.

How does FasTIS differ over anything else? Its ability to integrate with existing automated fare collection systems — a plus for TOC customers. Designed for use with Cubic’s contactless reader module used within the TfL Oyster™ Card system, FasTIS enables interoperability with the Oyster Card, subject to agreement with TfL. There is also a FasTIS variant with Oyster Card-only functionality called the TOC Oyster Retail Terminal, designed to offer a replacement for TOCs who are retaining the APTIS+ANT Oyster Card-issuing device. FasTIS utilizes the RJIS data feed from the National Rail fares table database that is standard to the UK rail industry, via an IPTIS engine. It also interfaces to the UK National Rail seat reservation booking system, NRES, for designated services.

FasTIS offers several other advantages including:

• Local storage of all National Rail fare tables so operators can continue issuing tickets should communication links fail.
• Flexibility for expanding the system to introduce retail marketing initiatives.
• Easy, intuitive interface for the ticket agent.
• Simplification of the complex reservation selection process.
• The fastest speed of ticket issuing enabled by such features as high-speed operation through signed-on user-defined “RAPID” keys that allow definition of ticket products to the level of one touch. User selections are locally stored for reuse at next sign-on.
• Interface with SQL Server database for comprehensive management reporting.
• Oyster Card capability.

The real beauty of the FasTIS system is its ease of navigation and user-friendly graphical user interface, which helps to improve productivity and reduce costs, two factors that can often be driven upward by other systems requiring a steep learning curve. FasTIS is designed with intuitive navigation and user screens that an experienced ticket office clerk or agent can easily learn in a half-day training session.

It is this ease of operation that most impressed attendees during demonstrations at the Business Travel Show. The system’s speed and simplicity of use allows ticket office agents more time to focus on the customer and that’s technology put to the most important use!

Oyster™ Card is a trademark of Transaction Systems Limited (TranSys).