Visionary Digitalisation - 3rd eos.ticketingSummit another great success

What are the major challenges for public transport when it comes to digitalisation? What does it take to make a network of different ticketing systems work? What are the latest new technologies and innovations in our industry? Following this year’s motto “Visionary Digitalisation”, the eos.ticketingSummit’s 148 participants were provided with answers to these and many other questions. The spacious conference hall of Hamburg’s Emporio Tower provided the perfect setting for the event that took place from 23 to 24 November 2017. The summit featured a total of 17 specialist presentations against the backdrop of an innovative stage design and stunning video technology.

“We consider this year’s eos.ticketingSummit another great success and are very happy that our participants like the format of the event”, said Michael Kujas, Managing Director of eos.uptrade. Michael Gross, also a Managing Director of eos.uptrade, added: “It’s great to see that we’re able to attract a growing number of external speakers for our summit. This way, we’re becoming more and more of an industry event. The fantastic feedback we got from the participants motivates us all the more for next year’s summit!”

Digitalisation in public transporth

The event started off with a series of presentations focussing on different aspects of digitalisation. This first session featured the following speakers: Elmar Sticht, Member of the Initiative for Digital Networking in Public Transport as representative of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), Dr. Steven Ahlig, Head of Innovative Technologies at Siemens Mobility, Stephan Sünderkamp, CTO HAFAS at HaCon as well as Mathias Hüske, Managing Director of Digital Business at DB Vertrieb.

Networking of ticketing systems

The second session highlighted the multiple ways in which eos.uptrade’s solutions are linked with different ticketing systems. Jens Brämer of CTS EVENTIM Sports and Jan Bochnig of eos.uptrade presented the “Combo Ticket 2 Go” and provided an insight into linking event tickets and public transport tickets in the digital (mobile) age. In another presentation, Hendrik Lehmann of HaCon and Philip Hahn of eos.uptrade showed how to link timetable information systems, tariff servers and ticketing solutions, using the example of HAFAS and TICKeos.

New technologies and innovative approaches

Florian Kloppe and Sebastian Hammes of eos.uptrade gave yet another very creative presentation on the latest trends in mobile ticketing. Volker Krebs and Lars Küttner of Munich Transport Corporation (MVG) provided the latest news from the eos.ticketingSuite development partnership and presented the MVG FahrInfo along with its newly integrated mobile ticketing solution. Andreas Rees of Siemens and Michael Gross of eos.uptrade gave an insight into the technical implementation of their companies’ joint CIBO & BIBO solutions and how these solutions can be implemented in different expansion stages.

Expert talk with industry heavyweights

Our expert talk with moderator Stefan Weigele, Managing Partner at civity Management Consultants, was once again one of the highlights of the eos.ticketingSummit . This year’s panel of experts consisted of Henrik Falk, CEO of Hamburger Hochbahn, Mathias Hüske, Managing Director of Digital Business at DB Vertrieb, Markus Raupp, Head of Marketing & Sales at Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen and Jens Brämer, Head of Operations at CTS Eventim Sports. An exciting and interesting panel provided a lively discussion about the challenges and perspectives of digitalisation and networking inside the transport sector and in working with external partners.

“There’s more beyond the horizon”

The participants concluded the first day on the 23rd floor of the Emporio Tower. The view over the rooftops of Hamburg was the perfect setting to round off the eos.ticketingSummit 2017 and, quite fittingly, a doppelganger of famous German singer Udo Lindenberg performed a stunning version of his legendary song “Hinterm Horizont geht’s weiter” (“There’s more beyond the horizon”).

Pushing innovation in public transport

On the second day, the topics of the presentations included increasing market and customer demands, the future of passengers as well as innovations in public transport. Michael Loose and Alessandro Kraschewski of eos.uptrade gave an exciting insight into user experience and how this topic became an integral part of eos.uptrade’s product development. In addition, we looked back at the first Mobility Hackathon hosted by HOCHBAHN and eos.uptrade.

The future starts with the passenger

The last session of the day was called “The future starts with the passenger”. eos.uptrade’s Marc Tönsing and Tom Friedel (feat. Amazon Alexa!) raised the roof with their very own version of “I Love Rock 'n' Roll”. Their equally exciting presentation dealt with the deeper integration of ticketing solutions in smart devices such as Amazon Alexa or chatbots, e.g. in Facebook.