Waterford Suir Valley Railway (WSVR) is Ireland’s longest narrow-gauge railway. Based in Kilmeaden, Co. Waterford and located just 10km from Waterford city, it runs beside the Waterford Greenway and along the banks of the River Suir.

This unique visitor attraction celebrates the importance of railways in Ireland and their contribution to education, industrial development, tourism, and social life.

In early 2020, the team at WSVR were looking for a new ticketing system that could provide:

• an integrated online ticketing and capacity management system
• an easy back-end for their team to manage and administrate
• the team with  the autonomy to manage all aspects of their events across ticketing, pricing, reporting, finance etc 
• a system that would seamlessly integrate into their own website
• customers with a quick and easy  purchase journey

One of the biggest tests  facing WSVR when they first  partnered  with Future Ticketing in 2020 was Covid and how they could operate in a safe way. The flexibility of the Future Ticketing system provided the solution they needed allowing them to trade while providing safety and comfort for their staff and customers.     

This involved:

• setting up new ticket options allowing for bubbles and social distancing to manage capacity
• providing a new seating map that effectively ‘cut off’ every other carriage
• the ability to set up flexible time-slots where customers chose date and time and then carriage and departure time-slot
• setting up e-tickets that provide access via a QR code to be scanned but also provide all the information needed to provide for their comfort and safety 

In 2022 key features of the Future Ticketing system that WSVR continue to use include:

• Online and in-person advance sales
• timed entry slots
• capacity management flexibility including being able to close or add compartments on individual time-slots or bookings  quickly as demand needs
• real-time, live sales reporting