The French national railway company, Societe National des Chemins de Fer, will launch its new computerised reservation system, Socrate, this year, to cope with an anticipated growth in traffic and to make it more competitive. By 1995, SNCF expects to process over 150m reservations a year on Socrate, up from 50m under the current RESA reservation system, which was developed way back in the 1970s. Conversely, it is also trying to guard against losing customers to alternative modes of transport. Socrate took three years and $240m to develop with the help of AMR Corp, American Airlines’ parent company, and Anglo-French software house Sema Group Plc. It is based on the American Airlines’ Sabre system, which is owned by AMR. Since May 1991, a quality assurance team made up of Sema Group and SNCF staff has been responsible for integrating, verifying and ensuring production of the various versions of the system. They had to ensure that Socrate conformed to the requisite specifications, and that it was up to scratch in terms of performance, safety, security, and operability. According to sources familiar with its development, Socrate will provide SNCF with a wider range of services, such as hotel and car rental. It is also planning to determine differential ticket prices according to how many passengers use a particular train, rather than only according to the date and time of travel.
