Big Bird Westphalia

Project description

In the Big Bird Westfalen project - funded by the state of NRW - a smartphone-based, barrier-free check-in/be-out system (CiBo) for public transport in the district of Soest, including local rail passenger transport (SPNV) and the neighbouring districts of Unna and Hochsauerlandkreis, has been developed to operational maturity by the project partners Mentz, Geomobile and AMCON and tested in real operation in the pilot area of the district of Soest with the adjoining rail lines. In the first step, the conventional Westphalian tariff with best price billing was implemented and billing was switched to the "eezy" tariff of the state of NRW from December 2021.
The system is a further development of the assisted check-in/check-out system introduced in NRW for the "eezy" fare and is intended to help create a basis and decision-making basis for a state-wide check-in/be-out system for NRW.
The front-end is based on an SDK provided by system developer Mentz, which has been embedded in existing apps from the WVG Group (fahrtwind from RLG and mobile info from VKU).
This enables every customer to use a smartphone to

• perform a check-in with automatic determination of their starting stop,
• generate a valid travel authorisation within their travel area,
• be automatically checked out at the end of the journey (be-out) or, if this is not possible, be able to perform an assisted be-out and
• receive an automatically generated invoice with a list of individual journeys at the end of the month.

The developed system with automatic be-out recognition is based on Bluetooth low-energy technology, insofar as it is installed in the vehicles to support barrier-free mobility, and also on GPS localisation with journey tracking and intelligent support through route and stop recognition.
Big Bird Westfalen takes into account and integrates existing low-barrier mobility chains in Soest and tests barrier-free communication between the necessary applications, the customer and the vehicle on a BLE basis.
In addition to the technical framework conditions, a concept should be pursued and tested that creates social acceptance of modern technology for everyone.
The technical and system-orientated evaluations should make it possible to consider social aspects in urban and rural regions and, in line with smart living and smart city strategies, provide digital low-barrier mobility chains in a single unit.

Big Bird Westphalia aims to develop a smartphone-based Check-in / Be-out (CiBo) system for completely hassle-free use of public transport across Westphalia without the need for fare knowledge or ticket purchase: Check-in – the travel authorization is automatically sent to the smartphone and upon reaching the destination, just exit – that's it. At the end of the month, the passenger receives a best-price billing.

Big Bird will be launched in the districts of Soest, Unna, and Hochsauerlandkreis (HSK). Participation can be easily accessed after a one-time registration through the RLG's Mobil Info app and the VKU's Fahrtwind app, and it is open to everyone in the test area.

Big Bird Westphalia is a project of the Soest district within the framework of the NRW public transport digitalization initiative and is currently being prepared for the areas of Soest, Hochsauerlandkreis, and Unna.

BLIC has been providing consulting services since the conceptual phase and supports the Soest district by taking over project management to implement this forward-looking e-ticketing solution.

Once the ongoing technical preparations are completed, the test operation will begin. Current information can be found on the Big Bird Westphalia project website.

 

 

Service description

Together with the district of Soest, BLIC took on the management of the overall project and contributed to the following areas of work:
Analysing the requirements

• Development of the rough concepts
• Supporting the development of the system architecture/system concept, the app SDK and integration into Geomobile apps
• Definition of the payment and clearing processes
• Definition of the processes for integrating the WVG tariff models and the price engine as well as for best-price billing, followed by implementation on "eezy" tariff
• Support during the pilot and testing phase and ongoing improvements
• Ongoing synchronisation of the work of the transport companies in the WVG Group