Chiltern Railways Extends Mobile Ticketing Pilot

Chiltern Railways is extending the use of SMS mobile phone ticketing for passengers, following the successful three-month trial that I wrote about at its commencement.

What are they doing? The UK railway is allowing customers to use electronic barcode tickets sent via SMS text message as tickets on Birmingham to London routes. These tickets are bought online and the barcodes are scanned at the ticket gate. I was SUPER excited about this program, as I can see it being used for other forms of transportation (like the airlines), as well as for entertainment, such as concerts and sporting events.

According to the Silicon.com article, “During the initial three-month pilot, 6,000 mobile phone rail tickets were sold. Chiltern Railways will now introduce further automation with the installation of two scanning devices attached to the ticket gates at London Marylebone station that will automatically open the gate when passengers scan their mobile phone tickets. Previously a guard had to manually open the gate for them.”

That does seem like a logical next step. In addition, the company plans on extending the availability to other lines the company services.