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Testing and Certification

In order to guarantee that the ITSO Environment is truly national and interoperable, members need to ensure that they are using equipment which has a current certificate for use in that environment.

To gain certification, the equipment is rigorously tested for compliance with the ITSO Specification.

It also undergoes interoperability testing with all the ITSO-compliant equipment available to date, to ensure as far as is possible that all components are truly physically interoperable.

An overview of the certification process can be found here.

Why certify?

Certification provides formal recognition of a product’s conformance to the ITSO Specification.

This allows:

  • Organisations to make clear and substantiated claims of conformance to the Specification.
  • Buyers to specify and successfully procure conforming products that inter-operate.

Upon successful completion of appropriate testing, the equipment and/or software is awarded an ITSO Certificate of Compliance which is normally valid for a period of seven years.

ITSO scheme operators should ensure that their equipment holds a valid ITSO certificate at all times.

Applying for Testing or Certification

If you have products that require testing or certification, then please get in touch with the Testing and Certification team to discuss your requirements.  Or start your application by completing one of the forms below:

CMD Certification Application Form  

POST Certification Application Form 

HOPS Certification Application Form 

Remote POST Server Certification Application Form

Remote POST Client/end point Certification Application Form

Telephone: 01908 255455

Email: certification@itso.org.uk

Testing on rail

Rail Settlement Plan (RSP) has developed a specification to detail the way that POSTs should be implemented in the rail environment.

The specification (RSPS3016) stipulates the requirements for implementing the ITSO Specification through a set of rules dictating how rail products should be mapped to IPEs.

RSPS3016 also defines the rail specific rules required for the ITSO Specification to ensure interoperability across the rail network.

For POSTs to be deployed in the rail environment, ITSO will perform testing for RSPS3016 at the same time as all other ITSO testing. This will save suppliers having to undergo two sets of technical testing with the two different specification owners.

However, it is emphasised that RSPS3016 is defined and owned by RSP, to whom any queries regarding it should be referred.

The RSP Specification can be found on the Rail Delivery Group website here.