Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Mosel: A ticket for Germany in 10 weeks
The collaboration between Ximedes and Billwerk+ enabled the swift transport ticket solution “Deutschlandticket” for German passengers.
Verkehrs-verbund Rhein-Mosel: A ticket for Germany in 10 weeks
The collaboration between Ximedes and Billwerk+ enabled the swift transport ticket solution “Deutschlandticket” for German passengers.
Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Mosel had to act fast
Starting in May 2023, German users can use regional public transport with the so-called “Deutschlandticket” (Germany ticket). The ticket is available as a subscription for 49€ per month. It can be cancelled on a monthly basis and is available digitally.
The regional transport associations and companies were tasked with the setup and management of the subscription – among them, the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Mosel (VRM).
At the end of last year, plans and discussions surrounding the Deutschlandticket began and the VRM was put under a lot of pressure to provide the right solution for their customers within the small timeframe.
With Billwerk+ and Ximedes, VRM managed to set up a fully functional customer app with a connected subscription management system in the background at the planned deadline of May 1st.
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More InformationThe Challenge: Managing Time and Costs
“We’ve reached our own limits with the Deutschlandticket and needed a proper partner for sales and the subscription management in the background. On a technical level, this endeavor was a smidge too large for us.”
The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Mosel was founded in 1995 and belongs to eight districts as well as the county borough Koblenz in the north of Rheinland-Pfalz. It initially started with an annual revenue of 47 million Euro. Nowadays, it makes up to 100 million Euros each year.
Since their early days, the VRM offers subscription tickets to use the regional public transport. However, previously, these were billed by the bigger transport services in the area that had their own subscription center.
The development of a job transport ticket at the beginning of 2020 was the first time that the VRM was able to offer their own subscription services via Microsoft Access data bank.
After the initiative of the federal government to offer a nine-euro-ticket in the summer months of 2022, to enable users to use regional public transport across Germany, discussions arose to set up a long-term follow-up solution.
In March 2023, the introduction of the Deutschlandticket was decided and was intended to go public in May with a pre-booking phase already starting in April.
Users can get a digital (smartphone) ticket via a ticket shop from VRM. All payment methods are managed by an external payment provider. Initially, VRM wanted to use their existing systems for the Deutschlandticket but realized soon that the implementation would have been expensive and exceeded the deadline.
The offer of our sales partner was very complex, very expensive and would have taken too long – we just couldn’t accept it.
We finally asked another provider whose offer was even more expensive.
For a while we were out of ideas how to realize the Deutschlandticket until May. But then Ximedes and Billwerk+ applied – just in time.
The Solution: A Branded App that’s Good to Go
From the first communication at the end of January until the contract approval in mid-February, only a few weeks were left to deliver the Deutschlandticket solution for the VRM customers in May.
The combined solution of Ximedes and Billwerk+ offers functionalities such as subscription management and payments as well as ticketing and a user app. Ximedes managed the development of the digital applications since the software company from the Netherlands is specialized in tailor-made software solutions for open banking and public transport.
With its knowledge of the German market landscape, Billwerk+ provided the necessary processes for subscription and payment management of the Deutschlandticket.
Together with VRM, Ximedes and Billwerk+ decided on the design of the app in a workshop. VRM included members of their IT and legal team as well as the electronic sales unit.
The requirements from the federal government were within reason: the ticket was supposed to cost 49€, needed to be active at the beginning of each month, needed to last for a month and cancellation needed to be possible on a monthly basis.
However, these basics left many questions unanswered. For the project, workflows were established for different customer groups to define, how – for example – minors could purchase a Deutschlandticket by providing payment data of their respective parents or legal guardians.
The customer app and the back-office system were implemented as white label solutions, so the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Mosel could have their branding applied. Since the solution did not necessitate any integration into existing systems, VRM was able to immediately operate it.
The implementation of the app in the Google Play and Apple App store took five days, so the VRM Deutschlandticket app was available starting April 30th for iOS and on May 1st for Android users.
Customers of the VRM could register for the app and buy the Deutschlandticket as a QR code. The QR code ticket is fully conform according to standards of the Association of German Transport Systems and therefore can be scanned with a scanner in all German transport associations.
Personal customer data is solely saved on Billwerk+ servers.
The Result: 4.300 Deutschlandtickets via App in the first Month
At the beginning phase of the Deutschlandticket, our setup was perfect, especially compared to other transport associations. We were able to realize features that others did not even offer yet.
Within the very short preparation phase, Ximedes and Billwerk+ delivered amazingly.
We were one of the few transport associations that managed to deliver within all legal requirements. That’s great and we’re a little proud of it.
With the solution by Ximedes and Billwerk+, VRM was able to offer its standard Deutschlandticket as well as versions for students and job ticket recipients as well as minors from the get-go and sold around 4.300 tickets. Across all sales channels, VRM manages circa 80.000 Deutschlandtickets.
Secure from Fraud
A special app feature is the increased fraud security of the QR code. Every two days, the QR code is being renewed without changing the validity of the ticket. This functionality is a standard in the Netherlands and makes it much harder to counterfeit the QR code.
“If someone’s code is being scanned in Koblenz and in Berlin at the same time, we know that it’s fraudulent”, explains Dagmar Becker-Friedman, project manager at VRM. “Changing QR codes are already standard in the Netherlands and Germany is moving towards this standard as well to increase security and make fraud attempts more difficult.”
Becker-Friedmann also sees improvement in the management of the subscriptions. “For our 1200 job tickets, we’ve used a tailor-made data bank to manage subscriptions. All job tickets are now being managed by the Deutschlandticket solution from Billwerk+ because the platform is transparent, user-friendly and efficient.
Outlook: More solutions and apps are planned
VRM plans to expand its Deutschlandticket solution to include more tickets such as single and day passes.
We’re so happy to have found a time- and cost-efficient solution.
The collaboration and goal-oriented thinking was great and we’re sure that we’ll be collaborating with Billwerk+ on future subscription management projects.
4000+ Customers grow with Billwerk+
4000+ Customers grow with Billwerk+
