RENFE keeps performance on track

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Founded in 1941 and headquartered in Madrid, RENFE is one of Spain’s leading railway operators. In accordance with EU directives regarding the privatization of European railway providers, the formerly state-owned railway company was divided into two distinct entities on 1st January 2005. Today RENFE manages operations, while its sister company ADIF owns and manages the railway infrastructure. RENFE services range from high-speed, inter-city lines to local commuter lines and cover over 15,000 kilometers of track in Spain.

Facing the privatization challenge
Following the privatization of railway services in Spain, RENFE was, for the first time, facing competition from other railway operators who had entered the marketplace. There were also fears that the popularity of RENFE’s high-speed AVE services with business passengers would come under threat from the increasing number of low-cost airlines operating in Spain. Despite this competition, utilization of RENFE train services was continuing to increase and the company planned to introduce a number of new high-speed train links.

The need for a state-of-the-art e-ticketing service
In order to gain a definitive edge over competing railway providers, retain business passengers and attract new customers for future high-speed railway projects, RENFE needed to improve its IT infrastructure, and in particular, its outdated online ticketing system. Lacking in functionality and somewhat inflexible from an end-user perspective, the company’s online reservation system had been unable to offer passengers the comprehensive, easy-to-understand view of available tickets and pricing that they wanted. RENFE needed a state-of-the-art, integrated online ticketing system which could go beyond those offered by competitors. To achieve this goal, a platform with the necessary reliability and scalability to support high levels of utilization for this ticketing system needed to be found.

Selecting IBM System zEnterprise 196
Having created an online ticketing application based on IBM WebSphere technology, RENFE considered which platform would offer the best support. A long-term user of IBM System z, RENFE has traditionally run all critical applications requiring high availability and excellent response times on its IBM System z platform. Confident of the robustness of IBM System z mainframe solutions, RENFE decided to upgrade to an IBM zEnterprise 196 solution to support its new online ticketing system. Designed for high availability and scalability, the IBM zEnterprise 196 is able to easily and efficiently cope with unpredictable utilization peaks, enabling high levels of systems responsiveness and customer service even during peak times.

RENFE implemented its business-critical ticket sales applications on the new IBM System z196 solution, activating seven Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processors in addition to IBM System z Integrated Information Processors (zIIP) and IBM System z Application Assist Processors (zAAP). These specialist processors enable RENFE to optimize price-performance, especially when combined with the low-cost of running Linux on System z.

High-performing, reliable information management solutions from IBM
RENFE is also using IBM DB2 to store increasing volumes of data from its online ticketing service. It was necessary that the online system should be synchronized with the main ticket reservation system to enable users to view up-to-date online travel information such as fares, journey times and seat availability. RENFE elected to implement IBM InfoSphere Change Data Capture, which is capable of replicating changes in the data host in real time to a distributed DB2 environment, facilitating real-time data synchronization.

The implementation of IBM InfoSphere Change Data Capture has dramatically reduced the time it takes for users to select search parameters online, enabling customers to carry out more complicated searches for information with no impact on the accuracy of the data which is obtained.

RENFE has also recently embarked upon an innovative revenue management project using the IBM ILOG CPLEX solution. IBM ILOG CPLEX provides the mathematical modeling technology to analyze the usage of RENFE services, enabling the company to ensure that the number of train services it supplies exactly meets the demand. Optimizing the number of train services will enable RENFE to improve efficiency and profitability.

Comprehensive, real-time ticketing solution
The launch of RENFE’s e-ticketing service, which runs on the company’s new IBM zEnterprise 196 system, has enabled RENFE customers to benefit from access to real-time information regarding train schedules, seat availability and fares. The high availability and reliability of the online ticketing service has helped to differentiate RENFE as the most modern railway provider in Spain, and inspire greater consumer confidence from rail passengers.

Enabling high online sales turnover
Using specialized processors such as IFLs, zIIPs and zAAPs enables RENFE to carry out more transactions in less time, providing the capacity to sell up to six tickets online per second, equating to 160,000 seat reservations each day and a daily turnover of more than 6 million Euros in ticket sales.

The IBM architecture offers the scalability required to cope with increasing ticket demand, particularly for new high-speed services. For example, 960,000 passengers travelled on RENFE’s high-speed connection between Madrid and Valencia in its first six months of operation. The online ticketing service has also increased the likelihood of customer retention. Currently, 90 percent of business passengers continue to opt for the RENFE’s high-speed AVE services over equivalent business flights.

Finally, the implementation of the IBM z196 system has allowed RENFE to make significant savings on energy costs.

Looking to the future, RENFE has plans to work with IBM to introduce cost-saving cloud computing techniques to its infrastructure. As a starting point, the corporate management intends to capitalize on the success of the IBM z196 project, and develop this model to support the rest of the company’s divisions as a service center. Deploying IBM Tivoli software will enable RENFE to assess and optimize usage of resources, while utilizing z/VM solutions will help with the rapid provision and allocation of capacity.

Designed for Data: Online data from the ticketing system is synchronized in real-time with production data using IBM InfoSphere Change Data Capture, supporting master data management to ensure consistency and accuracy is maintained.

Tuned to the Task: By allocating the workload for its business-critical online ticketing system to the IBM z196, RENFE has gained exceptional levels of availability. Activating seven Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processors enables RENFE to optimize price-performance for different workloads.

Managed in the Cloud: Designed to scale without concern for the underlying resources, the IBM solution enables IT employees at RENFE to provision resources easily and efficiently. The company plans to continue working with IBM to optimize use of resources and roll out the cost-saving, high-performing model throughout the company, developing a private cloud for use by other divisions within the company.

Driving Innovation: Looking to rapidly expand its high-speed, inter-city train services, RENFE required a scalable online ticketing solution which could support this growth. The IBM zEnterprise 196 offers the necessarily scalability to support increasingly high levels of utilization for the online ticketing application.