OSPT Alliance and Calypso Networks Association: Convergence with an Aim to Drive Global Adoption of Open Ticketing Standards

It was announced on January 28, 2020 that the OSPT Alliance and the Calypso Networks Association (CNA) would form a collaboration between their respective ticketing standards, Calypso and CIPURSE, to help support a global uptake in Public Transportation Operators (PTO) electing to support an open standard. The partnership will seek to address a myriad of issues currently experienced by PTOs and propose an alternative solution to already widely adopted proprietary systems. As the founding principles and aligned value sets of the two organizations have continued to mirror one another, the decision was made to join forces to promote the advantages of open standards to PTOs and offer a unified solution adaptable to any requirement.

While both organizations have long had the goal of supporting PTO requirements, the convergence of two standards will require a clear objective to provide a coherent response to the widespread adoption of proprietary systems. As a result, there are a number of objectives that will shape the rollout of the new standard:

1. Increase the knowledge base regarding the advantages that open standards provide over alternative solutions
2. Synchronize the technical output of both organizations to provide a singular, cogent process
3. Promote the development of innovative solutions through the convergence of stakeholders and isolated processes
4. Streamline the options for PTOs and address pain points in open standards to establish a collaborative and concerted ecosystem

As the announcement is still in its infancy, there is a significant amount of work to be undertaken in order to provide a compelling alternative to a well-ingrained ticketing market. However, with an initial movement to adopt and combine the strengths of each standard, a roadmap is being developed to ensure complete interchangeability between Calypso and CIPURSE, which will be mandatory to ensure ongoing support for existing solutions and the creation of a defragmented ecosystem. The roadmap will be targeted with three working groups working on governance, marketing and communication, and a technical group. By providing a Software Development Kit (SDK) based on Eclipse Keyple open source software and working on a common Secure Access Module specification, the partnership can begin the rollout of a competitive offering. Eclipse Keyple itself provides generic libraries to simplify the development of contactless applications, originally based on the Calypso standard, and integrates with Secure Elements (SE) that are part and parcel of a secure contactless solution and will be made compliant with CIPURSE to provide a unified solution.

It will be important for the two organizations to continue to support current projects while working on the new convergent standard, securing investor interest for the foreseeable future. The Calypso standard is present in 150 cities across 25 countries and the OSPT Alliance has reached 100 members comprised of suppliers, operators, and government agencies.

It is important to consider the needs of PTOs across the world. Some PTOs will have extensive expertise in the field of ticketing solutions (both closed and open standards), though some may have little to no knowledge of the options available to them. The partnership will seek to address this by providing a flexible solution that can be easily implemented, understood, and tailor-made through the use of the aforementioned SDK to fit the needs of the PTO in question. For example, in Latin America, PTOs of smaller towns and cities may not be aware of all the solutions available to them, unlike Europe where the ticketing market is much more saturated. Contactless EMV (cEMV) may also not be the best solution for a region, as there may be the requirement for a back-end fare management system as part of an Account-Based Ticketing (ABT) system. This requires considerable expertise and expenditure, which, if out of reach for some PTOs, may present opportunities for this new cooperative standard to fulfil.

Regardless, there is a long roadmap to work through before a unified open standard can be presented to the market as a competitor to proprietary solutions and, while significant strides have been made in the creation of targeted working groups, it may be some time before a complete convergence comes to fruition.