EVAplus upcoming: Kick-off for a joint project of DB and HaCon
HaCon has won the contract for EVAplus, a large-scale project of Deutsche Bahn (DB). Within the tendering procedure, consisting of several steps, the software company has qualified for a complete remodelling of the integration of DB’s timetable data. Over the two-year project period, the Train Planning System TPS will develop the data hub further, which contains and validates the timetable data of all transport companies in Germany and finally stores it in the existing timetable information system HAFAS. This data hub, the TPS Integrator, will be enhanced under the project title EVAplus. The official start of the project was initiated with a kick-off event at the DB in Frankfurt.
The TPS Integrator as an integration tool unites all kinds of different timetable data of the passenger transport. That includes DB-long-distance, regional- and local transport as well as regional buses and trains and the entire European transport. That means that altogether about 1,2 million trips can be integrated. In a following step the data will be combined, standardised, verified and refined in a single data set. Afterwards, carefully edited, correct and stringent data will be available as data supply for the timetable information system on bahn.de.
Passengers benefit
The current system of the DB-IT-service provider DB Systel will be replaced by the TPS Integrator. Thus, DB Systel acts as ordering party. The objective is to speed up processes for DB Sales as a user, which basically means that the period of time between the processes for data supply of the individual transport companies up to their inclusion into the timetable information system will be considerably faster coming along with the optimisation of data updates. After project completion, passengers will benefit from an even more reliable journey planner that provides virtually perfect and realistic results.
“HaCon has gained extensive expertise in the construction and management of timetables in the fields processes procedure, multi-customer capability, change management as well as integration of external data with TPS Train Planning System”, according to the project manager Dr. Volker Klahn (Ph. D.) . This expertise will be incorporated into the development of the TPS Integrator within the framework of EVAplus as well as replenished with extensive new and further developments.
TPS for the first time was put into operation for the Danish Railways (DSB) in 2002. Besides the operator DSB also the railway infrastructure company Banedanmark and the supervisory authority Trafikstyrelsen operate TPS successfully in Denmark. Further European railway networks that already have made the decision in favour of TPS are the British railway infrastructure company Network Rail and the state-run operator of the French railway network Réseau Ferré de France (RFF), the Spanish-French railway infrastructure management company TP Ferro and last Jernbaneverket in Norway.
