Case Study

Of

International Rail

Project Name International Rail

Application URL https://www.internationalrail.com/

Development Technology MSSQL 2012, ASP.NET C#, MVC 5, AngularJS,

JavaScript, HTML 5

Industry/Domain Travel and Tourism

DISCLAIMER This document is submitted with the explicit understanding that the contents are confidential and would not be divulged to any third party without prior written consent from Dotsquares Ltd.

Services are supplied according to our terms and conditions

http://www.dotsquares.com/terms

About International Rail:

International Rail is an independent limited liability company, specializing in the sale and distribution of Rail

Tickets and Passes for rail travel, world-wide. International rail has headquarter in Hampshire, UK. It has

contracts with the majority of rail companies worldwide along with a team of Call Centre advisors who are

highly conversant with all the various international booking systems.

International Rail has its own in-house, cutting edge technology for the booking of Point to Point journeys

and rail passes along with ongoing work to connect to various rail companies' APIs.

International rail offers more rail products than anyone else in the world. It covers the most extensive

range of countries and destinations available by rail, all at some of the most competitive prices available.

International rail has over 66,000 Point to Point routes including Eurostar, French TGV, German ICE,

InterCity, EuroCity and Spanish high speed trains in whole Europe.

Initial Requirements:

The initial requirements were to Manage Users, Manage Passes, Manage Rail tickets, Route management,

Agents Subscription, Server management, Content management System (CMS), widget development,

pricings, reports and handling of various application program interfaces through one platform.

International Rail arrived with the requirement to sort out the major issues in their existing website that

was majorly having an unresponsive admin panel. The admin panel required to be flexible for different

types of agents that supports B2B, B2B2B, B2C, and B2B2C. The system was vast and they need to procure a

flexible, simple and optimum system to operate their entire business.

Solutions Delivered:

In international rail system we have developed a centralized code so that admin of the website can

create number of websites without copying the code. Currently different sites are working on various

domains controlled by a common central admin.

The system retrieves various XML live feeds from different rail operators like: Bene, Renfe, NTV,

Trenitalia, Evolvi.

In the current system of international rail, we have different categories of users like single user, agent

and corporate. To address the requirement of corporates, the system has a feature where corporate

can register and book the tickets for their travelers. The system has functionality to book single/bulk

ticket and purchase a pass for any particular country. In this system, any corporate is able to manage

the parent and child companies’ relationship by maintaining the required privacy.

o Solution Flow Diagram:

o Sparkling Features of International Rail:

• Single Track System for all the divisions

• Offline Booking in admin panel (Pass & P2P)

• Reporting Section

• Dynamic SEO section

• Dynamic offer page section

• Find and book tickets

• Management of Multiple Passes

• Widget for Rail ticket Integration

• A Single environment for different websites (CMS)

• Management of payment gateways by the admin

• Online Printing Tool

• Server Management

• Bulk ticket booking for corporate sector

o Bulk ticket booking for Corporate:

The international rail is immensely big system and cater different categories of users. To solve the corporate client’s ticket booking problem. International rail has a feature that allows corporates to book tickets for their frequent travelers. To get benefitted of this service of International rail, corporate has to register themselves on the platform.

To manage privacy and security, International rail uses third party (OKTA) SSO Authentication. Once the user created their account, the account is ready to book tickets for their travelers.

International rail thinks in perspective of their users so they allow to book ticket for one/bulk tickets in one go and also allows to book rail passes for frequent travelers.

Benefits of Corporate account:

One track system for all corporates

One/bulk tickets booking facility

Book rail pass.

One platform to book ticket for different countries

Secure account by SSO authentication

Challenges that we faced:

Combining multiple APIs on single page

Pass functionality for corporates

Generate report for corporate accounts

Managing parent & child organization

To manage corporate clients and provide high process speed

News Management (New launches, Promos, offers, discounts)

Solutions that we provided:

Managing multiple APIs on single page search result.

Providing multiple types of passes i.e. Japan rail pass, German twin rail pass, Rail global pass, Inter rail global pass, Inter rail and Eurl single country pass.

Provided Report for monthly and daily pass sale

To manage parent and Child Company, we are using branching system where parent company can view child company details but Child Company cannot view parent and other child company details.

Provided a separate website for each corporate client to book ticket/pass. Once they request to the system, we are managing a one hub service engine where all the APIs are connected. Each request will pass from this one hub system

Managing dynamic News functionality.

Challenges Faced and Solution Proposed for International Rail:

Major Challenges Solution Proposed

Burdensome and Complex back-end:

The International Rail holds a huge number of users and online ticket bookings. The data and functionalities handled by the enterprise are vast and complex. There was a major requirement for managing the Content Management System (CMS), bookings, passes, multiple users, products, pricings, reports, offices, etc.

Strong and Flexible back-end Management:

All the information can be accessed at the same time from the same location which is less time consuming and cost effective. The admin panel can efficiently manage all the online rail bookings and rail passes with respect to the domain. Quick view of Rail feeds, one track updates and all the services are available on the dashboard only.

As at the present time, the agents and the public, both can book tickets from a single panel.

Difficult Handling of Different API’s:

The data has to be retrieved from various rail operators. For this it was difficult to handle the several application programming interfaces (APIs).

One Track System for Different API’s:

The proposed one track system can retrieve the various XML live feeds from different rail operators like: Bene, Renfe, NTV, Trenitalia, Evolvi, SBB (under development) and SCNF (under development). The feeds are hence displayed on the International Rail platform with the help of this one track approach.

Enterprise Expansion Required:

International rail desired to offer more rail products than anyone else in the world. For this, the system required should be global for all the divisions.

Global For Different Divisions:

At this point in time, it covers the most extensive range of countries and destinations available by the rail. It is now global for different divisions (UK, US, NZ, AUS) and has an own global site. We provided a unique system for all divisions.

Want to offer Rail Ticket Integration for Multiple Sites:

The client wanted to provide the rail booking feature to get displayed on other websites, but the booking should be performed indirectly from the International Rail website.

Widget Proposed For the Rail Ticket Integration:

A Widget is a component of an interface or a feature. Here widget was proposed for booking the Rail tickets. We supplied a widget that just need to be integrated into any website and the booking can be performed easily.

Printing Software has to be downloaded again and again on the Desktop:

The IR had a licensed software for printing that they want it to go live in support of this system. So that repeated download on desktop can be avoided.

Printing Tool Made available Online:

Their printing tool is available on the internet. From there they can manage various the printing functionalities.

Management of multiple sites from Single back-end:

The international rail has many agents that also need to run the similar websites. Hence the need of re-creating the similar type of functionalities in websites for several users by the administrator itself.

Created Single Environment to Run Multiple Sites (CMS):

We have developed a centralized code for creating a single environment, so that the administrator of the website can create number of websites without copying the code for each separately.

Several Payment Service Providers Required:

As the enterprise running in many divisions of the world, so there was a requirement of multiple payment service providers for the multiple websites operated.

Configuration with various PSPs: As International Rail is Global for different divisions of the world, so there are different payment service providers (PSPs) linked to the website. A common payment gateway platform was proposed to support various PSPs such as SecurePay, WorldPay, Ogone, and many more. The 128-bit encryption technology was implemented for the sake of security.

Configuration with various PSPs: As International Rail is Global for different divisions of the world, so there are different payment service providers (PSPs) linked to the website. A common payment gateway platform was proposed to support various PSPs such as SecurePay, WorldPay, Ogone, and many more. The 128-bit encryption technology was implemented for the sake of security.

Milestones achieved by International Rail: TOTAL RUNNING SITE: Approximately 68 TOTAL AGENT: Approximately 7900 DAILY ACTIVE USERS: Approximately 2000 TOTAL NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS: 1, 54,000 NUMBER OF COUNTRIES: Approximately 50 NUMBER OF TRAINS COMPANIES: Approximately 40 FEW OF THEIR OPERATORS: • Bene

• Trenitalia • Evolvi • NTV • Renfe • SBB (upcoming)

• SCNF(upcoming)

Partners of International Rail:

Development Approach

The project development is solely based on the Agile Work methodology and the Scrum

architecture. This raised our projects to a peak level in quality, security, profit, promotion, etc. We

design, build, configure, test and then release the potentially shippable project increment. This process

cycle is also performed in the iterative manner or in sprints.

Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile software development framework for managing product

development. Scrum has the power to transform project management across every industry and every

business.

Dotsquares strongly abide with the agile project management that follows the Scrum Methodology in

the development of every project. During product development, we focus on product by observing the

small steps regularly (daily scrum) and large changes periodically (weekly scrum).

The Dotsquares Scrum architecture guide clearly defines the roles of the team and the other people

involved. With the help of scrum, we prioritize large to do lists into manageable tasks with improved

teamwork, better communication and faster result. We focus on the Scrum process as it is best suited

with rapidly changing or highly emergent requirements.

o Scrum values:

Focus

Courage

Openness

Commitment

Respect

o Our Project Development Architecture using SCRUM Activity

Product backlog Refinement (Product Owner)

Sprint Planning (Sprint Team)

Daily Scrum

Sprint Review

Sprint Retrospective (Scrum Master)

o Benefits of Scrum Methodology in the Project Development:

Scrum allows clients to change priorities and requirements whenever and wherever desired

Scrum puts the control of the value stream back in the hands of the business

Scrum delivers products more quickly and proficiently

Scrum promotes transparency to meet project commitments

Better workforce management

Enhanced customer and client relationships