About us

About us

VDV eTicket Service: Who we are and what we do

We make (((eTicket Germany. This means that we publish the standard for electronic fare management (EFM) in local public transport: the VDV core application (VDV KA) and (((etiCORE.

Our team also operates and coordinates the technical systems for EFM in local public transport and develops new technical solutions for transport companies and transport associations. This includes supporting the participating companies and suppliers and setting up and monitoring organisational rules.
We offer consulting workshops for transport companies and system component manufacturers. Our training programme includes basic and specialist seminars, both face-to-face and online, as well as training courses and user training.


Security management and data exchange

Another area of responsibility is security management. The service provider T-Systems manages our centrally issued keys and security certificates in a trust centre;
We manage the security process and the 'ASM-Tool' web service, which is available to our business customers via our partner IVU Traffic Technologies AG.

We organise the internal data exchange of business customers participating in the (((eTicket system via the service provider equensWorldline SE Germany. This service provider operates a 'central exchange centre' (ZVM) for us and thus enables an 'interoperable network' (ION) for (((eTicket Germany. Find out more about ZVM, ION & CO. here.

eTickets auf Chipkarten

Certification and joint procurement

We also certify the ticketing components used: contactless chip cards, sales terminals, registration terminals and background system interfaces. The independent company cetecom advanced GmbH operates its own test laboratory for this purpose.
As a central service for our participants, we issue chip cards on behalf of transport companies and transport associations.

Change Requests

The participating transport associations and companies can work with us to further develop and improve the EFM standard by submitting so-called Change Requests (CR) . Our 'Standardisation Working Group', which is made up of experts from the transport companies and associations (VU/VV), supports and advises us in assessing these CRs.
Which CRs are ultimately implemented and incorporated into a new release is decided once a year by the participants' meeting. The representatives of all participating transport companies and transport associations come to Cologne for the participants' meeting.

Our organisational form

We have organised ourselves as VDV eTicket Service GmbH & Co. KG. Our limited partnership emerged from VDV-Kernapplikations GmbH & Co. KG on 1 January 2014. This was founded in 2003 as a development company to develop an e-ticket standard for public transport: The VDV core application.

These are our current shareholders:

  • VDV eTicket Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne (general partner)
  • BVG Beteiligungsholding GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin
  • DB Vertrieb GmbH, Frankfurt
  • Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft AG, Duisburg
  • Hamburger Hochbahn AG, Hamburg
  • Kölner Verkehrsbetriebe AG, Cologne
  • Mainzer Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH, Mainz
  • Münchener Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH, Munich
  • NVBW-Nahverkehrsgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg mbh, Stuttgart
  • Rhein-Main Verkehrsverbund GmbH, Hofheim
  • Verkehrsverbund Großraum Nürnberg GmbH, Nuremberg
  • Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe GmbH, Dresden
  • Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr AöR, Essen
  • Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg GmbH, Cologne