Account-Based Ticketing (ABT): What is it?

With Account-Based Ticketing (ABT), ticket information is not stored on a smart card or a smartphone, but centrally in a back-end system. When a ticket is checked, the necessary information is retrieved online.

In an international context, we have been addressing this issue for several years. Through the Smart Ticketing Alliance, we engage in dialogue with European standards bodies and transport operators, where Account-Based Ticketing has been in use for some time due to the structure of local public transport. In Germany, too, we have been supporting ABT for many years, both internally and through individual industry projects. For example, a document produced by our organisation on ABT and the ‘European Travellers Club’ project dates from 2016.

Difference between ABT and MBT

Account-Based Ticketing and Media-Based Ticketing differ primarily in where the ticket information is stored and how it is accessed during a ticket inspection.

Media-Based Ticketing (MBT)

Ticket information is stored on the user’s device, e.g. a smart card or smartphone
The inspection system can read
information from the medium

Account-Based Ticketing (ABT)

Ticket information is stored in the back-end system
The medium is primarily used for identification
Information is retrieved online from the back-end system

ABT thus enables ticketing processes that differ from Media-Based Ticketing, which has been predominantly used in Germany to date. A look at London illustrates how this might work in practice.

A well-known example of account-based ticketing is London. Transport for London (TfL) first introduced contactless payment using bank cards on buses in 2012 and extended the system in 2014 to the Tube, London Overground, DLR, trams and parts of the National Rail network. Since then, passengers have been able to use their contactless bank card directly as a means of access, without having to buy a separate ticket or top up their balance beforehand.

The back-end system assigns individual journeys to the ticket used and calculates the fare payable on that basis. This also allows, for example, a daily or weekly fare cap – known as ‘capping’ – to be applied. This makes ticketing simpler for passengers: they simply check in, check out and travel, whilst the processing of journey data and fare calculation take place in the background.

Challenges in implementing account-based ticketing

Account-Based Ticketing offers many opportunities, but also presents technical and organisational challenges:

To date, there is no fully standardised understanding of ABT, either in Germany or internationally. Transport operators and standard-setting bodies employ different solutions tailored to their respective local requirements. Interoperable ABT therefore requires common definitions, rules and standards.
With ABT, key information and processes are shifted to back-end systems. This requires reliable communication between the systems involved and a technical architecture that functions reliably even with limited connectivity.
Interoperable ABT does not work through technology alone. Transport operators, transport associations, standards bodies and other stakeholders must agree on common processes and framework conditions. National solutions, such as those in Switzerland or the Netherlands, show that a central organisation and close cooperation between the stakeholders involved are essential for this.

With (((etiCORE, we are laying the foundations for extending existing ticketing processes to include account- and ID-based procedures. A key component of this is our ticket and token store for ABT. It enables different ID media to be used interoperably for ticketing and fare inspection.

Would you like to explore this topic in more depth? In our technical overview, we have summarised the key aspects of account-based ticketing in detail.

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