Cyclades Fast Ferries (CFF) is a well established ferry company in Greece that provides daily routes to the Cyclades islands, where departments of the University of the Aegean - a key member of the ERUA University Alliance - are located.

Cyclades Fast Ferries (CFF) accommodates more than 1,1 million passengers per year traveling to and from the Cyclades Islands with 5% of these passengers being students. CFF in collaboration with UAegean and EWC project (European Digital Identity Wallet Consortium) are dedicated to disrupting ferry travel by enhancing the passenger experience through seamless identity verification and by allocating discounts based on the profile of the passenger, during booking. One major discount type is a valid student educational id. This disruption is achieved by verifying passenger’s identity credentials and other attestations, by providing convenient storage of boarding passes in their wallets, and by enabling the instant verification of boarding passes directly from their wallets during embarkation.

Designing effective strategies to enhance Ferry passenger experience is challenging.

Today, passengers seek a streamlined user experience when journeying by ferry. Managing various document formats and sifting through digital and paper-based credentials to ensure all necessary items for embarkation can be overwhelming, particularly in today's fast-paced lifestyle. Ferry companies need to improve passenger experience, to gain a competitive advantage, and at the same time guarantee the security of the identification process. These challenges apply for all passengers, while they become even more pronounced for students as well as other types of passengers eligible for discounts, who travel between islands and their home bases or for students visiting the Greek islands to participate in summer schools, workshops etc, or during vacations. Cyclades Fast Ferries, in partnership with UAegean, ERUA and EWC, are dedicated to enhancing the ferry travel experience for students in the Cyclades Islands. Their aim is to seamlessly transform existing procedures, ultimately providing students with a streamlined journey. This includes simplifying every aspect of their travel experience, by only using their mobile phone to identify with the company, book their tickets, issue the boarding passes and embark on the ferry.

Building the foundations of an improved cross-border ferry traveling experience using EBSI.

The project leverages the power of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) to build the foundations needed for a seamless cross-border student ferry travel experience, uniting the University of the Aegean, the student population of a major University Alliance of Europe with a key Ferry company in Greece/ Cyclades to achieve this.

The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) allows Cyclades Fast Ferries (CFF) and UAegean to design, build, and operate this next generation digital identity wallet based services.

The objective of this project is to enhance the student passenger ferry experience and by allowing them to:

• Store, share, and present credentials proving their educational identity.
• Seamless verification and recognition of educational identity when booking a ferry ticket, significantly reducing errors in the manual submission of this information, eliminating the need for paper-based checks and increasing the reliability of the information available to public authorities.
• Seamless generation and secure storage of ferry boarding passes (ensuring none can use another person's ferry ticket to embark).
• Enable the presentation and verification of passengers boarding pass directly from their digital identity wallet during embarkation.