Deutsche Bahn, the German railway operator, has agreed with blockchain integration platform Unibright to research about ecosystem tokenisation via Blockchain, according to a press release published on Tuesday, Dec 18. "Consulted by Deutsche Bahn / DB Vertrieb GmbH to work on content for a workshop of an internal entrepreneurship program," says the press release, "Unibright evaluated on tokenising the ecosystem around a public transport company with the help of Blockchain technology." The largest railway operator in Europe is exploring decentralised solutions to cut operational costs and to build better networking possibilities with other companies in the sector. The project will expand "a blockchain based solution for bringing together all connected services around a travel (tickets, vouchers, local transport, accommodation, local train networks)." On the technical perspective, the ecosystem will be "defined by datastreams between different companies and their underlying IT systems. Some of these data streams may be defined and empowered by the offering of APIs on one or both sides of the connection. Other data streams may exist, but are not yet supported by an automated integration." What tokenisation can do for railway operations? Now tokenisation, which is the method chosen to build the ecosystem. "Basically it means to transfer the participating values and assets into tokens, that act like value representatives or vouchers with a specific sense in the ecosystem." So, what could be done with this initiative? "The outcome of the workshop will not lead to a near-term implementation, but is the basis to extract a specific business case for the internal entrepreneurship," says the press release. The company believes that building open solutions enhance the possibility of the creation of new networks and partnerships with other actors in the travel industry. With a tokenise option, customers will be better represented in the case o any incident, and it will allow a better understanding of all services and partnerships. "With the concept of a blockchain based token ecosystem, relying on “trustless trust”, we can get one step closer to an independent acceptance of services of different suppliers," said Akram Sioud, BI Developer and blockchain enthusiast at DB Distribution. "We can expand company wide insights to market-wide insights and build new distribution channels and markets. This enables us to better understand and know our customers, and their demands," he concluded.