On Tuesday the New Media Awards Weblog published a story (“Mobile to Ride”) about mobile phones being used as bus or train tickets in Tyne and Wear. Since then, Andy Bairstow, the Commercial Director of Nexus, the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive, has been in touch with a more thorough explanation of this new system.
According to Bairstow, there are over 200 ticket machines in Tyne and Wear that only take coins. For every £1 earned, 10p are needed to manage, maintain, and empty the coinage. Two-thirds of ticket revenue come from coins, which is not a cost-effective way of issuing tickets.
The machines currently being used are too old to be updated so that they can accept credit cards and notes. If customers do not have the right value of coins they can not purchase a ticket. This often forces commuters to buy cheap items, such as newspapers, to get change. Bairstow sees this system as being unfriendly to users.
Mobile phone ticketing is a solution to this problem.
“The mobile phone ticketing trial is an attempt to reduce costs and improve accessibility,” said Bairstow.
Under the new system, customers set up an account with a credit or debit card and text Nexus to purchase a ticket. The value of this is then debited from their account.
An SMS text message is then sent to customers containing a unique code that ticket inspectors can identify. The text includes all the information found on a normal ticket, such as the type of ticket purchased and the time it was bought.
Safeguards have been built in to the system to prevent fare dodging. Customers are unable to forward the message to another phone, and the SMS takes approximately five minutes to reply, preventing tickets from being quickly purchased when an inspector is seen.
“This is very much a trial but is going well,” said Bairstow. “The technology works, and we are currently assessing the market response to it. It has obvious advantages. Customers do not need change, they are not forced to queue for ticket machines, and the tickets can be bought in advance.”