Schlepp- und Fährgesellschaft Kiel mbH (SFK), a sister company of KVG Kiel, operates ferry lines on the Kiel Fjord that are part of the public transport network. To replace the manual sale of paper tickets and reduce the workload for the ship’s crew, AMCON has implemented a cashless sales solution for SFK. A total of five ships will be equipped with the modern Pyramid Polytouch 24 Classic terminals. The self-service terminals are already in operation on the MS Schwentine and the brand-new MS Düsternbrook. “We are very satisfied with the smooth project implementation and are now eager to see how customers respond to the cashless sales terminals,” says Andreas Schulz, Managing Director of Schlepp- und Fährgesellschaft Kiel mbH. In addition, besides the three remaining terminals to be installed by March 2022, four onboard units will be installed on the ships that function as staffed cash registers where passengers can still pay with cash.
Cashless self-service terminals ensure modern ticket sales on board
Passengers can conveniently purchase tickets for ferry rides on the Kiel Fjord cashlessly via the large touchscreens. The project also supports the SH Tarif 2.0 fare system. Schedule data is imported using VDV 452, and through the connected backend system, the central office can manage master data, shifts, devices, and cashier accounts, as well as control data distribution.
In addition to the cashless customer terminals, four AMCON board units — already proven in practice and widely used by many bus companies in Germany — are being delivered. Besides selling tickets onboard the ships, the board units also function as IBIS Masters, for example, to determine changing stops. Meanwhile, the self-service terminals act as IBIS Slaves, enabling relational sales with automatically detected starting stops.
