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A smartcard for buses, cable cars, museums and more.
Visitor cards such as the Oberstaufen PLUS or the Hochschwarzwald Card combine public transport season tickets with regional offers on a single chip card.
Anyone spending their holidays in the Allgäu, the Black Forest or the Swabian Alb will not only receive their room key when they check in at their accommodation, but often a guest card as well. With this chip card, travellers can use local public transport as well as cable cars, museums, swimming pools and mountain railways. Whether it’s the AlbCard, Oberstaufen PLUS, Schwarzwald Plus or Hochschwarzwald Card: they all combine digital tickets with tourist attractions.
The Oberstaufen PLUS guest card, for example, has combined public transport access with free mountain railway rides, ski passes and other tourist services since 2008. The card’s annual turnover of just under three million euros demonstrates the economic significance of such systems.
Wiif, a tourism-focused management consultancy based in Oberstaufen, is specifically introducing the concept of guest cards to tourist regions. The emphasis here is on the experience and the narrative. Technically, the card is based on a regional smart card platform with interfaces to various systems – ranging from mountain railway facilities and public transport operations management systems to hotel software. This comprehensive integration enables a seamless service for users. Whilst early implementations still relied on two separate chips in a single card, today’s solutions are more streamlined, using a single chip.
To ensure everything runs smoothly, we audit the SAM servers running in the background. Most recently, our colleagues Gunter (Head of Security Management) and Joe (Head of Research and Development) visited Oberstaufen to do just that.
Both the Schwabenbund and the Bodensee-Oberschwaben Transport Association use SAM server systems to generate VDV barcodes for visitor cards. These are issued as smartphone tickets and ensure compatibility with existing ticketing systems.
The technologies tried and tested in tourist visitor cards can, in principle, be adapted for use with standard public transport smartcards. Transport operators could offer their season ticket holders additional services – such as discounted or free access to regional leisure activities. This would increase the appeal of public transport season tickets and create new opportunities for customer loyalty.
The technical infrastructure, comprising SAM servers and VDV-compliant barcode systems, is already in place. The willingness of regional partners to cooperate and viable funding models are crucial to the scheme’s success.