Mobile Ticketing System for Public Transport

Project overview

Oxagile partnered with a German provider of IT solutions for public transport to reengineer its legacy ticketing system that serves around a third of the German market.

Client: leading German provider of IT solutions for public transport with a focus on mobile ticketing and fare collection.

Case highlights

A nearly 30% market share in Germany
43 public transport companies
More than 700,000 end-users across iOS, Android and web

A twofold boost in database performance
New client setup is now 15 times faster
An increase in transaction capacity to 40,000+ tickets per day

Industry

Information & Communication, Logistics and Transportation, eCommerce

Delivery Model

Managed dedicated team

Domain

Business Intelligence, BPM/BPA, CRM, eCommerce

Effort and Duration

Ongoing, 50 man-months so far

Technologies

Java, Mobile, Front-End, Spring, EJB, Hibernate, JBoss, Gradle, Cocoon, HTML, MySQL, SQLite, REST, SOAP, AWS, Docker, Git, Maven, iOS, Android

Business challenge

The client approached Oxagile to reengineer its legacy ticketing system with a focus on improving the overall performance and robustness.

Launched a decade ago, the system was failing at peak loads and experiencing frequent database freezes that required a total reboot. These issues hampered the ticket purchasing process for passengers and resulted in losses for transport companies.

Besides performance gains, the client was looking to accelerate the process of implementing new features and functionality enhancements, such as new ticket types, car rental capability, and more.

Oxagile’s process

Oxagile assembled a team of seasoned professionals, including a certified Project Manager and several senior-level developers. The team adhered to an agile, predictable process tailored to the client’s business needs and transparency standards.

Delivered solution

Oxagile performed partial rearchetecturing, while significantly revamping the system and introducing new functionality to it. Overall optimization considerably increased backend robustness and doubled the solution’s performance. The updated solution has allowed the client to win new partnerships with transport companies, expanding its market share to serve over 700,000 passengers.

Currently, the solution comprises comprehensive customer and service provider portals, as well as a range of user-friendly mobile apps.

Mobile and Web Apps

iOS, Android and web apps ensure a hassle-free, on-the-go ticket purchasing experience. The apps enable passengers to calculate trip cost, save favorite routes, keep payment history, view and filter purchased tickets, set notification preferences, and edit personal data.

Users can choose from multiple payment options, including credit card, bank transfer, or mobile phone credit.

The system also offers a specialized Android app for conductors that makes ticket validation process a breeze.

Customer and Service Portal

In addition to the functions available on mobile, the customer ticketing portal provides a detailed timetable and extensive information on passenger categories and ticket types to make trip planning as stress-free as possible. The service portal allows the client to effectively manage transport companies, collect business intelligence data such as sales statistics, monitor ticket status, control active secure application modules (SAMs), and more.

Key Features and Highlights

Trip cost calculator
An ability to save favorite routes
Payment history
Support for multiple payment options
Advanced fare management capabilities for carriers
A powerful user administration module
Comprehensive business intelligence data collection and analysis
Secure 2D barcode tickets underpinned by robust SAM-based encryption
Complementary mobile apps for iOS and Android

Full-Scale Solution Reengineering

Oxagile’s team performed all-encompassing code refactoring and database optimization, which helped eliminate existing bottlenecks and ensure reliable operation under high load.

The team rearchitectured the solution’s backend, which resulted in a significant performance boost. Now, the system can effortlessly handle over 40,000 transactions per day — at least twice as many as before.

As part of performance improvement, Oxagile’s engineers redesigned the SAM-based 2D barcode encryption module to significantly enhance service reliability and ensure its seamless operation.

Oxagile has built an easy-to-integrate payment API, allowing transport companies to generate additional revenues by using the solution’s backend for hassle-free ticketing.

Plus, the improved architecture enables a faster rollout of new features, which helps the client to better accommodate change requests from transport companies.

Future plans

The client highly appreciated Oxagile’s solid expertise and the ability to deliver in the face of harsh deadlines. The engaged engineers won the client’s confidence by providing exceptional results, and the next development stage is already underway.

The plans include the implementation of such new features as multi-language support and season tickets, complete redesign of web and mobile apps, as well as automating the process of adding new transport companies to the system.

The client is also looking into using Oxagile’s test automation expertise as the best way to increase test coverage and repeatability, thoroughly test complex business logic, and optimize product quality.

The HanseCom team has been working closely with the Oxagile technical team for over 2 years and we have been nothing but amazed by their expertise and dedication. Technical implementation of new features for our customers here in Germany where constantly in time and budget, and feedback was always positive.
We are happy we made the decision to work with Oxagile and plan to continue our partnership in the future.
Sebastian Neil Hölken
Chief Operating Officer, HanseCom

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