Smart421 beats giants to rail ticketing deal

Larger rivals did not see us in their rear-view mirror, says KCom-owned consultancy

Smart421 says the IT services goliaths "did not see it coming" after snagging a multimillion-pound, six-year deal to provide a next-generation ticket issuing system to the UK rail industry.

The KCOM-owned IT consultancy has been awarded a multi-year contract to design, build and manage a new live sales management system for Rail Settlement Plan (RSP), a company owned by the UK's 24 franchised passenger rail operators.

The system, which will be built on Amazon Web Services' cloud platform, will support Ticket on Departure - where passengers collect tickets that have been purchased earlier on the web from self-service machines.

It will also provide a foundation for other delivery channels, such as mobile and smartcards.

ChannelWeb understands that Smart421 beat off competition from about 12 other bidders, including incumbent Fujitsu.

Smart421 marketing manager Joseph Spear said: "I do not think the large SIs really saw us in their rear-view mirror.

"With it being rail industry procurement, there was some pretty stiff competition. This win reflects the fact we are very good in complex situations and could demonstrate a track record at a price that was very attractive."

The system will be built by Smart421 between December 2012 and January 2014 and will be followed by a five-year 24/7 support contract.

The AWS cloud platform will feature a range of technologies from Amazon, including its Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud and Simple Storage Service. Smart421 will also weave in various open source technologies from vendors such as Red Hat, ForgeRock, Infobright and Jaspersoft.

Neil Miles, managing director at Smart421, said the fact that rail ticketing demand goes through seasonal and daily peaks and troughs made cloud computing an obvious choice.

"By choosing AWS technologies, Smart421 is giving RSP the ability to scale up their infrastructure during peak seasons and scale back during the off-peak times," he said.

Steve Howes, managing director of RSP, said: "We realise that this project will be watched very carefully because of its importance to RSP and the train operating companies we serve. Smart421 has demonstrated its capabilities and credentials to our total satisfaction and their tender represents excellent value for money."

Fujitsu declined to comment for the story.