Improving the train ticket purchase process for 100M passengers doesn’t sound like a piece of cake. Same as maintaining the digital transformation of the national company for 11 years(!). How to do it smoothly?
CHALLENGES WITH DIGITAL PROGRESS
Stermedia worked with the railway company from 2009 to 2019. It was a long business process during which we faced many challenges. Firstly, our task was to develop complicated system modules. Until 2010, the work involved implementing the platform in cooperation with other companies. Solutions at technology change rapidly. So, every year there was a challenge of maintaining all the functionalities in accordance with the best technological standards. Each month of work involved adding new functionalities and implementing changes coming from the legal department. The last years of work involved the preparation of a complaint handling and recovery module.
Communication with Stermedia has always been at the highest level. Contracts and orders were delivered as intended. A team of 7 programmers performed this work, as well as the coordinator Adam Matusiak, were characterized by professionalism, diligence, and help in solving problems or suggesting the best solutions. The PKP Informatyka team involved in the project assessed the work of the entire team and Stermedia very highly in terms of content and organization.
Wiktor Żak, Project Manager, Stermedia
SOLUTION TAILORED FOR THE CLIENT’S NEEDS
The subsystem known as Mercury is responsible for this solution. This system consists of a mobile cash register (Terminal IT-3100), where the conductor manages ticket data, payment method and issues a print order. The ticket itself is printed by the Vega-Mobil fiscal printer, which communicates with the terminal using Bluetooth technology.
The terminal has a connection via RS 232 cable to the PINPAD 13070 device for card-based payment.
Finally, for security reasons, the mobile cash register also has a built-in camera that can be taken to a passenger who refuses to pay for the journey.
The solution enables business correspondence exchange by informing about events on the railway network: train difficulties, track repairs or accidents, etc. The terminal, thanks to built-in wireless GSM / GPRS communication, is able to update its database.
RESULTS
Platform implementation successfully completed and resulting in changes throughout the process. Creating a new version of a legacy system that is compatible with the latest functionalities and technology standards.
Integration of all parts of the system includes:
- ticket offices
- mobile sales terminals for conductors (Mercury)
- online booking platform
- system of billing, analysis, and statistics
The biggest challenge was the scale of the project and the prevention of code aging during 11 years of development.
Adam Matusiak, Project Manager, Stermedia
TECHNOLOGIES
Java, Oracle Database, Eclipse RCP and Jasper, Guava, Mockito, SWT.pk
TEAM
7 developers and Project Manager
ABOUT THE CLIENT
Stermedia’s client was PKP Informatyka, a company of PKP Group responsible for supplying Polish railroad operators with IT technology. A final beneficiary of the booking platform was PKP InterCity, a company of PKP Group (Grupa PKP) responsible for long-distance passenger transport who wanted to improve the train ticket purchase process.
Reference letter from PKP Informatyka applies to making changes to the KURS2008 application in 2017-2019 by Stermedia and its employees
We confirm the proper execution of programming works consisting of introducing changes and new functionalities into the KURS2008 IT system. The works on the basis of 2 contracts and separate orders were characterized by due diligence. Communication with Stermedia has always been at the highest level. Contracts and orders were delivered as intended. A team of programmers composed of Wojciech Zaborowski, Michał Kapłon, Paweł Janeczek, Jacek Kubacki, Szymon Krupczyński, Maciej Michoń, Grzegorz Haftarczyk, who performed this work, as well as the coordinator Adam Matusiak, were characterized by professionalism, diligence and help in solving problems or suggesting best solutions. The PKP Informatyka team involved in the project assessed the work of the entire team and Stermedia very highly in terms of content and organization.
Reference letter from PKP Informatyka applies to work on the KURS2008 application
We are pleased to recommend the company STERMEDIA, which in 2017-2019, based on two separate contracts, performed work on the KURS2008 application. The design challenge of PKP Informatyka was to find a reliable technology partner for long-term cooperation and complete the project in the set time. Over the past 3 years, Stermedia has carried out programming work consisting of introducing changes and new functionalities to the abovementioned IT system. Stermedia is characterized by transparency, high quality of work, and professionalism in contact with the client. A team of programmers composed of Wojciech Zaborowski, Michał Kapłon, Paweł Janeczek, Jacek Kubacki, Szymon Krupczyński, Maciej Michoń, Kamil Rogowski, Grzegorz Haftarczyk, who performed these works, as well as the coordinator Adam Matusiak were characterized by extensive professional experience, openness to change and proactivity in overcoming challenges. If necessary, the team willingly proposed alternative solutions and recommended the best of them. Communication with the team was smooth. The PKP Informatyka team participating in the project assessed the work of the entire team and the Stermedia company very highly in terms of content and organization.
PKP Informatyka
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