I 90 Station Codes Temporary Codes and Metastations - UnionInternationalCheminsdeFer/OSDM GitHub Wiki

I-90 Station Codes - Temporary Codes (UIC MERITS) and Metastations (UIC-AIR-RAIL Project)

Metastations

Metastations are place codes to search for a trip starting somewhere in a city (e.g. PARIS) without specifying a real train station. These Metastatiions are used for the trip search request only, they are never used trip specifications or fares.

To allow a retailer to access two providers in a search using a metastation these metastations would need to have the same code. The flow would then be to search for Stations with the name Parsi and in the return from one on the providers the metastation Paris would be returned. The code of the metastation can then be used to get offers from different providers. Metastations are currently defined in the MERITS station data.

As metastations are not stations they are not part of the regulated station code list maintained by the natiopnal agency.

Proposal would be to use PointOfInterest for metastations and to define a specific urn for metastations

E.g: urn:uic:metastn:198 for Paris

Temporary Station Codes

Real station codes must be assigned by the national authorities. However this process is not always working in an appropriate time frame. The solution in the UIC station codes (agreed with ERA) is to add temporary codes for stations until the national autority assigngs the final code.

Do we need to extend the place master data to include a link between temporary and final station codes? What can happen with bookings containing temporary codes when the final code becomes active?

Decisions

• URN template for meta stations is added.
• Temporary station codes are potentially a problem nevertheless very unprobable. Thus we address it at later at stage