Deutsche Bahn AG is the leading train operating company in Germany and through its years of experience has been able to put several services together for its customers. Getting tickets from Deutsche Bahn AG has been made easy since there are several online ticketing platforms available along with a mobile app. In addition to providing transportation services, Deutsche Bahn AG also offers access to taxis, restaurants, hotels among other services. But to reach a broader region, Unibright’s expertise comes in.
In order to make Deutsche Bahn AG’s services available to a lot of people, there is no better way than tokenization of its services using blockchain technology, which is now being achieved through collaboration with Unibright. The created blockchain platform will place all services in one place, be it access to local train networks, accommodation, local transport, vouchers or tickets. To kick-start the whole process Deutsche Bahn AG asked three of its personnel to join the development team over at Unibright and carry out a four-week trial on the Deutsche Bahn Vertrieb (Ecosystem Tokenization via Blockchain.) Their primary goal is to extract the viable business ideas from the project, carry out research and integration.
Marten Jung, CEO of Unibright commenting about the collaboration states,
“One goal of the workshop concept was to define better, which players can be part of an ecosystem around Deutsche Bahn and to make proposals on how this ecosystem can be built. The result should feel natural to the customer and provide tangible advantage.”
The Concept behind Deutsche Bahn Vertrieb
The idea is as simple as this; transfer the value and assets from the current state into tokens which can be fully utilized within the ecosystem. The tokens represent values and can be in the form of vouchers with specific uses. Through the incorporation of all the offered services on a blockchain system, these tokens will serve as the currency that can be used by customers to pay for such availed services. The token will be transferred from the customer’s digital wallet to the service provider as payment, similar to using fiat currency. Apart from that, token holders will also be able to sell or return the tokens to the issuer.
Besides Deutsche Bahn, other service providers can define new tokens within the ecosystem. Customers can redeem the new tokens for the intended service or even purchase the tokens. But at the moment the system only supports tokens to be redeemed per driven mile only.
APIs in Place
To ease the whole process of accessing tokens in the ecosystem, APIs are made available for customers. Through APIs, they can easily create a wallet, purchase tokens and go ahead to make bookings and pay for services using the same tokens during the journey. While the system is on trial mode, more services will be added from local service providers soon.
