Sqills expands its European coverage with S3 Passenger for OUIGO Spain
The Spanish Infrastructure administrator ADIF judged in favour of granting capacity for 10 years to OUIGO Spain, allowing this SNCF owned operator to become the first private rail operator to compete with state-owned incumbent train operators on Spain’s rail network.
Ouigo España is an open-access operator of high high-speed railway services in Spain and a subsidiary of SNCF Voyageurs
The opening up of Spain’s rail sector, after several years of very slow progress, is much looked forward to by Spaniards. The private-sector competition will focus on attractive Spanish passenger routes (Madrid-Barcelona, Madrid- Valencia /Alicante and Madrid- Sevilla/ Málaga).
On December 9th 2020, SNCF’s Ouigo Spain launched their Madrid- Barcelona sales using the Sqills’ S3 Passenger inventory, sales, and distribution software.
OUIGO SPAIN offers 5 returns per day between Madrid and Barcelona, with stops at Zaragoza and Tarragona. Over time the proposed destinations will be extended to Valencia and Alicante, and later to Seville and Malaga. The new services will offer approximately 30.000 seats per day at maturity.
S3 Passenger has been selected to power our internet only reservations. Following the successful partnership between SNCF OUIGO France, SNCF’s subsidiary Squirel and Sqills, we have decided to use the gained experiences by Squirel and Sqills to our advantage by contracting both companies. Sqills will provide its leading S3 Passenger SaaS platform and Squirel has been selected as system integrator and operator.
Bart van Munster, Sqills CEO, added “The developments of the liberalisation of the Spanish high-speed rail market and the out of the box fit of S3 Passenger was further proof for Sqills that we can serve our clients in their demand to enter in a highly competitive market. With Ouigo Spain added to our customer base, S3 Passenger is now being used by 35 public transport operators across western Europe and North America. This broad geographical coverage opens interesting interoperability opportunities between carriers using the S3 Passenger standards".