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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/retailandleisure/0,3800011842,39358838,00.htm

Fujitsu lands £13m rail info contract
It's a chuffing big deal

By Julian Goldsmith

Published: Wednesday 03 December 2008

The Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) has renewed a contract with Fujitsu Services to the tune of £13m.

Under the deal, Fujitsu will continue to run Atoc's Rail Journey Information Service. The service forms the IT systems underpinning the Rail Enquiry Service and is also used by the 22 Atoc members and two online retailers, providing them with information on timetables, fares, route planning, ticketing.

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It also includes transaction services involved in all ticket sales.

The service supports 820,000 customer information requests and processes one million ticket purchases per day.

The contract, which will last for five years, extends Fujitsu's relationship with Atoc, which began in the 1990s when the company was contracted to integrate a number of the train companies' legacy systems.

One of the new requirements of the contract will be to upgrade database systems to cope with the 25 per cent year-on-year rise in the use of the service's 1,600 vending machines sited in large mainline stations.

The upgrade is intended to make such Ticket-on-Departure machines more cost effective and encourage smaller train stations to take them up.