Once upon a time, STIB’s perfect ticketing system
She can buy it:
- on a vending machine,
- at a counter,
- or even on her phone.
Everything works perfectly, there are never any breakdowns, and the sales machines are always in excellent condition. It's almost like being in a fantasy world, but there's a rational explanation behind it all!
To better understand why Brussels public transport ticketing is so perfect, let me tell you its story.
In Brussels, the metro is managed by the STIB, “Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles”, one of the four Belgian transport operators. As an historical Calypso actor, STIB co-created the standard with Lisbon, Paris and Venice. It is the first operator to have implemented ticketing in Belgium since 2004.
The STIB called on Spirtech to renew its ticketing system. It wanted to improve its reliability, so that it would not experience any faults or breakdowns. It also wanted to be able to remove the SAM from the ticketing machines in order to limit risks and vandalism.
The performances requested by the STIB were:
- 20 million validations per day,
- 100,000 sales per day,
- 2,000 machines connected simultaneously.
Spirtech, as usual, took out its magic wand to meet its customer's needs. Our superb engineers set up HSM 360 to remotely manage the keys. Thus, the SAM could be removed from the sales machines and remote sales became possible. They also secured access to the HSM to protect them from fraud, and decided to place the HSM 360 on two independent sites, so that the system could continue to operate in the event of a breakdown.
The project took place in three stages:
- development and testing (3 months).
- preproduction and configuration (6 months).
- production phase.
And this is how STIB ticketing is now reliable, modern, secure and convenient for users!
