“The UIC is delighted to welcome the OSDM API sandbox of benerail. Their dedication to advancing the future of rail is evident in their active participation and support from the beginning for the OSDM APIs with CER members commitments on CER ticketing road map. More companies will follow soon,” Vittorio Carta, OSDM Initiative Manager and Chair of the UIC Passenger Services Group, and Bertrand Minary, Director of UIC Passenger at the International Union of Railways, acknowledge.

As OSDM API is a UIC initiative, showcasing its implementations to the world is essential. On osdm.io, sandboxes are published in the tools section of Sqills as a technology provider and Bileto as a carrier provider. Among those, you can now also find the benerail sandbox for the OSDM API.

The benerail sandbox is the showcase for a new product of benerail, aptly named osdm_api. The sandbox is an experimental playground and a central hub for interested parties to access, share ideas, and collaborate with benerail. With its unique position as a technical provider for SNCB and NS, benerail delivers its products towards retailers and distributor offers for a complete journey through the OSDM API.

Mark Mallants of benerail states, “We are proud to be among the members of the OSDM community, which includes ticket vendors, travel sector groups and rail companies. Our OSDM API sandbox now follows the OSDM workgroup’s effort to define the API. It marks a pivotal milestone in our efforts to promote a community-driven approach to developing and refining OSDM API specifications. We hope to inspire others to implement it. In the meantime, our effort lies in using OSDM in real cases and proving that OSDM will decrease cost and implementation time.”

Plan of implementation

As the CER Ticketing Roadmap outlines, OSDM is crucial in opening up system connections between retailers, distributors and mobility providers to sell international rail and public transport in Europe.

In that light, benerail implemented an OSDM connection to Sqills S3 for the train service between Brussels and Amsterdam, which is expected to go live at the beginning of April 2024.

Furthermore, benerail collaborates with several railway companies to implement its OSDM API and expects to Go Live with the first company in June 2024.

Are you interested in the sandboxes? You can request access to the Sqills, Bileto and benerail sandboxes via the website osdm.io.