Sqills, the Dutch provider of software solutions, will implement its sales and distribution platform ‘S3 Passenger’ on the UK railway market. The system will make the reservation and purchase of train tickets more flexible to passengers. The S3 Passenger solution will be implemented with the help of the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), the association of the British train and infrastructure companies.

Squills was chosen as a supplier of a new sales and distribution system via an extensive procurement process. The implementation will take 18 months. The S3 Passenger system will replace the existing national reservation service (NRS). The new solution will allow a train company to connect multiple inventory systems of the partner carrier. It is expected that 21 British train operators will use S3 Passenger system by next year. They will be able to connect their own inventories with other S3 Passenger operators such as Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail), Eurostar, Thalys/IZY, Ouibus, Ouigo and future system users.

S3 Passenger solution

The S3 Passenger platform provides easier access to long-distance international travel. The system is based on the S3 RM software module. It analyses historical demand and forecasts future demand for each departure, analyses the found price elasticity figures in transactional data in order to make the demand forecast price sensitive, and optimises the required booking limits based on the ongoing progress of a future departure in its sales cycle. The S3 Passenger platform is able to maximize and control revenue from available market demand for rail or bus operations.

“Sqills will continue to work on integrating its solution with more operators across the globe, welcoming them into the constantly growing S3 Passenger community. We will continue to develop more and better services for rail and bus passengers to grow the volume of public transport users and contribute to a better global environment,” Sqills Board Member Alexander Mul explained.

Rail Delivery Group

The implementation of the S3 Passenger solution was supported by RDG. The association consists of around 50 members and includes the train operating companies, owing groups. freight operators and infrastructure managing companies. “After entering into an agreement with Eurostar early in 2018, our contract with RDG is an incredibly important step in providing customers throughout Europe with a seamless booking and travel experience. For RDG, having a new inventory system means being able to grow their business and process more passenger transactions,” Alexander Mul concluded.