Since the introduction of the Deutschland Ticket, there have been discussions in public transport - about the barcode. More precisely, the industry is arguing about which barcode should be used. The UIC barcode or the VDV barcode? We say: the Motics. But what is the difference between these standards? An explanation.
On 28 November 2024, representatives of German public transport companies met in Cologne for an extraordinary meeting of participants. The aim was to vote on security standards for the Deutschland-Ticket, as the number of cases of fraud involving digital tickets has increased.
For the first time, the participants' meeting not only discussed technical developments to the standard, but also decided on guidelines for issuing tickets.
This is possible in accordance with the rules and regulations of (((eTicket Deutschland, in which all transport companies in Germany are legally bound together.
However, decisions are made by this public transport general assembly with a quorum of 75%. This high hurdle is necessary as these are binding decisions that may trigger investments.
Some important resolutions were passed, for example on the encryption of communication. Other points, such as the security of the UIC barcode and the introduction of a centralised product stewardship system (ZPVS), were controversially discussed and postponed.
However, one central question remains unanswered: should the Deutschland-Ticket also be issued with the UIC barcode or only with the VDV barcode?
The role of the participants' meeting
The difference between UIC and VDV barcodes
The two barcodes differ primarily in their area of application and the underlying concepts:
The UIC bar code is a 2D barcode that was developed for international long-distance transport.
It is issued by the International Union of Railways (UIC ), which registers long-distance rail transport companies and provides a public database for the public keys. This enables railway companies in international transport to check each other's tickets for authenticity.
However, the UIC only issues the specification. Everything that a transport company needs for encryption, blocking, monitoring or rules and regulations between different companies must be set up and operated by the company itself. As these are mostly national long-distance rail transport companies, which are usually state-owned, the number of UIC users who have to exchange information with their neighbours is manageable.
The VDV barcode is also a 2D barcode and was specially developed for German local transport and is part of the VDV core application.
It is embedded in the central background systems and the rules and regulations of (((eTicket Deutschland. It therefore uses the same security infrastructure as the chip cards in Germany and is designed for interoperable use by thousands of companies that do not know each other but must trust each other.
As only a participant contract and at least one security module with the secret key are required to use the VDV barcode, the VDV barcode is significantly cheaper than the UIC barcode for use throughout Germany. Full utilisation of all background systems and central security management is included for participants. This includes encryption, blocking, communication in the shared network and national monitoring.
Nevertheless, all barcodes have a serious weak point: barcodes of all types can be copied and redistributed by screenshots, for example.
Whitepaper Application of barcodes in public transportMotics - copy protection for barcode tickets
To solve the problem of copyable tickets, the VDV (((eTicket Service has developed the Mobile Ticketing Crypto Service - Motics for short - on behalf of the public transport industry. This system connects the existing ticketing infrastructure with passengers' smartphones. It has various expansion stages so that tickets can be issued visually as barcodes and soon via NFC.
In the first expansion stage, the VDV barcode is copy-protected by a dynamic security element. Motics enables the smartphone to create a new barcode itself. This can be generated, for example, with a time stamp that is renewed every 30 seconds. If the ticket is then copied and sent, the dynamic element stops and can no longer be renewed on another mobile phone. Copied tickets are therefore immediately recognised during checks. This process also works if the passenger's smartphone is offline.
More about Motics
Motics has now also found its way into Google Wallet. In close cooperation with Google, PaderSprinter and Ride, the functionalities of Motics have been successfully integrated into Google Wallet. This enables transport companies and transport associations to offer their occasional customers secure mobile phone tickets directly from the web shop without having their own app.
The VDV eTicket Service is planning the first field test with Motics and NFC tickets in 2025. In this expansion stage, the same security procedure will be used as for chip cards and will allow contactless ticket verification via radio. Chip cards and smartphones can then be checked in exactly the same way. Scanning barcodes and checking ID media is no longer necessary and speeds up ticket verification enormously. This means that German public transport can retire barcodes and distribute modern, fast and secure tickets to customers' smartphones.